Contusion
by unison raid
Summary: Sometimes, you just have to girl up and roll with punches. Most of the time, those punches aren't actually punches but are instead Hollow Cero's. And I'm not rolling with them, I'm running away. /Sequel to Bruised.
1. the sun goes down and the lights come on

_a/n: Quick note before we start: This is a sequel, it does contain OCs, and there are established relationships. You can read it without the prequel (which is Bruised), or you can just say 'fuck it all' and hit the back arrow or burn your computer or whatever you feel is necessary. There's another a/n at the bottom._

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><p><strong>one: the sun goes down, and the lights come on<strong>

"Are you _sure_ you live here?"

I rolled my eyes and took a sip of my tea. "Yes, Ichigo, I'm _sure_ I live here." 'Here' was my apartment in Karakura Town, all white walls and hardwood floor. One bedroom, one bathroom, a rather sizable living room, and the dinky little kitchen that Ichigo and I were currently seated in.

I could see the sun setting just over his shoulder, lighting up the sky in a haze of pinks and oranges. It was only five in the afternoon, and the fact that the sun was _already _setting reminded me that it was closing in on winter, and that it was much colder outside than it looked.

"It's not even decorated!" My attention flicked back to Ichigo.

"I'm still settling in!" I insisted, slightly offended. _Not decorated_? Psh. It was _totally_ decorated. He just didn't have the eye for it.

"You've been here for _two years_, and there's _nothing_ on the walls, and your furniture is _less_ than the bare minimum that you need!"

"It _is_ decorated," I insisted, waving a hand around to motion to the table we were sitting at—the top was old and worn, and it was wobbly because one leg with an eighth of an inch shorter than the others, and none of the six chairs I had for it matched. An old box of pizza and various pieces of paper were scattered across the tabletop, pinned the fridge, and even in haphazard stacks on the counters.

"I don't call a wall of faded sticky notes and eight empty boxes of pizza _décor, _Kaori."

"Jokes on you," I half shouted, pulling the nearest pizza box across the table with a finger, flipping the lid open. "They're not all empty!"

"But that pizza has _mold_ on it."

"And a little mold has never killed anyone," I stated boldly, punctuating my sentence with a bite out of the cold, stiff piece of pineapple pizza in my hand.

I nearly choked on it as I fought to chew and swallow it, eyes filling up with tears at the texture. I swallowed it anyway, gasping for the air the second it left my mouth.

"I _told_ you," I rasped, reaching for my tea cup and taking a swig of the cooling liquid. "A little mold _never _killed anyone."

Ichigo looked like he didn't believe me. "You're going to die, and I'm just going to sit here and laugh."

"Jokes on you, because I'm either going to haunt your ass until someone puts me out of my misery for good, or someone's going to come and find me in the Soul Society. And I'm sure Urahara will lend me a gigai to live out the rest of my life peacefully." I waved the moldy pizza slice around in the air, pointing at it with my other hand. It was stiff as cardboard, and weirdly moist. "Besides, I don't think eating moldy pizza is going to be my cause of death."

"Then what will be? Your diet and choice of boyfriend are the only two things that pop into my head immediately."

"Why would _Grimmjow_ be my cause of death?" I threw the slice of pizza back into the cardboard box it tasted like, pushing it away from me across the cluttered table top. At the end of the table, a stack of papers crashed to the floor. I didn't make a move to pick them up; it was just how I organized things.

Ichigo threw his hands up into the air, pointedly looking away from me and at the wall somewhere to the right of my head. I frowned at him and shook my head, focusing instead on the open laptop in front of me. A blank document filled the screen, cursor blinking at me, _daring_ me to actually write something.

So I typed my name, _Kozume_ _Kaori_, before sitting back with a sigh and crossing my arms over my chest. That had been a lot of work in and of itself, and _that_ totally deserved a break. Right?

"What are you even _here_ for?" I asked, turning my attention back to Ichigo. He had picked up a piece of paper off of the table and was reading, but his head jerked up when I spoke again. "Shouldn't you be filling out college applications or something?"

"Shouldn't _you_ be doing your coursework?" he shot back, waving he piece of paper in his hand. "Or your thesis or something? That _is_ what all of these papers are for, right? Otherwise I would think it would be super weird that you have all of this stuff about anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder just lying around."

"Yes," I said grudgingly, nudging a couple of piece of paper that contained pretty much the same contents of what Ichigo held in his hands away from my personal bubble with an elbow. It was hard to tell what most of the papers contained anymore; I would have to look through them at some point, clean them up from off the table and the counter tops and the corner in the living room, _maybe_ organize them in a somewhat logical way.

"And you're not working on it because?"

"I do better under pressure," I insisted, eyes flicking to the screen on my laptop and away, daunted by the expanse of white space, filled only by my name in size twelve font.

"So you're going to wait until, what an hour before it's due?"

"Two, actually." I shifted in my chair and rested my hands on the keyboard again, _pretending_ like I was actually going to work on it. Maybe if I pretended hard enough, something would actually get _done_. Maybe I could psyche myself out enough to do it.

We fell back into silence, Ichigo reading the papers I had printed out for research, my fingers dancing the keyboard of my computer without _actually_ writing anything on it.

By the end of twenty minutes, I still only had my name in my document—which I had successfully saved, by the way, under 'help me I can't actually do this'-and Ichigo had managed to swipe most of the research papers into two manageable piles.

"You really _should_ decorate in here," he stated into the silence. My fingers stilled in their imaginary typing. He was _really_ going to try and bring that up again?

"Why?" I asked, lowering the lid on my laptop to give him my full attention. It wasn't like any of my coursework was actually getting done, anyway. "Maybe we like it the way it is."

"Really? Because it looks like you've either hardly lived in it, or you've just moved in and haven't quite decided on how you should decorate yet. And I know neither of those is true, because you would have said something about the first one and, as before stated, _you've lived here for two years_."

"Why are you so focused on this issue? Why is it even an issue? It's called minimalist décor, Ichigo. And it's totally in style right now."

"Was it in style when you moved in? Or are you just trying to use that as an excuse?"

"What are you, my therapist?" I snapped, closing the lid on my laptop completely and leaning across the table. A huge chunk of my brown hair decided that _that_ was the time to fall from the bun at the top of my head and hang in my face.

And that—that probably didn't help me look serious _at all_.

Neither, apparently, did the look on my face, because all Ichigo did was laugh at me like I had said something funny. I made a noise in disgust, pushing the chunk up hair back into the rubber band that held my bun in place, and looked at my watch.

"Are you going to stay for dinner?" I asked Ichigo, pushing my chair back and standing up. Grimmjow would be home soon, and I knew I would need something in my stomach _other_ than moldy pizza before too long. It was my night to make dinner, anyway.

"Not if you're eating more moldy pizza."

"Gosh, I do something _once_ and you're never going to let it go?"

"You just did it twenty minutes ago! I'm going to have nightmares for _years_."

"Why are you going to have nightmares for years?" Our heads whipped toward the doorway, where Grimmjow is standing in rumpled jeans and a black t-shirt and bare feet. I smiled widely at him, happy to see he had actually made it _home_.

"Nothing," I said quickly.

"Your girlfriend ate moldy pizza," Ichigo answered at the same time. "It was really gross."

"Are you all right, Kaori?" Grimmjow asked hesitantly as he moved into the kitchen. We crossed paths as I moved to start dinner, giving each other a hi-five. "Like, do you need to go to the hospital or something? Does Kurosaki need to, I dunno, pump your stomach? Are you going to die?"

"Why does everyone assume I'm going to _die_ from eating a little bite of moldy pizza?" I demanded, slamming a cupboard door, a bag of rice in my hand.

"It was a mouthful of moldy pizza, Kaori!" Ichigo corrected, flipping the lid back on the pizza box that held the evidence.

I snorted and shook my head, starting in on preparing food.

'Why are you even here, Kurosaki?" Grimmjow asked as he took my recently vacated chair.

"Why does it matter?"

"He's here because college applications got the best of him," I sang. "And Urahara is overbearing, which is why he didn't go _there_, before you inquire about that part. Which you do _every time_, so don't say that that wasn't about what you were going to say."

I heard much rather than saw Grimmjow snap his mouth shut in response to my words.

"And Kaori is _much_ more understanding of my pain than my father is," Ichigo tacked on. "She's actually had to fill out college applications. She knows how hard it is to make yourself look good on paper." There was truth to his words, but he hadn't complained about _any _of that. We had just sat down in the kitchen without discussing _why_ he was there, tea in our hands.

And then he had started complaining about my lack of decorating in my home.

"I hadn't known we were joint commiserating," I commented. "If we _had_, I would have worn my 'wow, college applications suck' outfit."

"You actually have a set of clothes for that?" Grimmjow asked. I rolled my eyes, because we had been through this before. After I had come back from Hueco Mundo and moved to Karakura, my wardrobe _might_ have needed a little expanding. And I _might_ have gone a little crazy and bought more clothes than I needed, but it had been pretty therapeutic.

"Unlike some people, I don't have multiples of the same item." I was referring, of course, to his _own_ wardrobe which was basically t shirts and jeans and they all looked identical; I would be damned if I could even tell half of them apart. "Besides, all I would need is a tub of ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other and _bam_!"

Ichigo had nearly choked on his own spit and left when I opened the front door in a ratty old t shirt and a pair of boxers. If I had the tub of ice cream, I would have perfectly replicated exactly what I had been wearing when filling out college applications. Just, you know, without all of the tears and the clumps of hair I had pulled out.

The conversation stilled for a moment, and I checked the rice. It was still to soon for it to be properly done, but I was impatient. I could practically feel Ichigo and Grimmjow glaring at each other behind my back. They still did not get along very well—I had known what had gone between them before, how they had both tried to kill each other multiple times, how Grimmjow had lost an arm because of it (which was a whole 'nother story entirely, ugh), and he had nearly died. How they had _both_ nearly died on multiple occasions because of one or the other.

They still wanted to kill each other, most of the time, and I had had to break up more than a few fights over the past year with the help of Kurosaki-sensei. They had gotten better about fighting, though-at least, they had when I was around.

Ichigo hadn't really paid any sort of attention to me until he had found out I had been in Hueco Mundo for a number of months before meeting me. And then he had really started dropping by often when he came to terms with that bit, like he thought Grimmjow was going to hurt me or my body would show up in a ditch somehwere.

"And it's still kind of hard to adjust not going to school everyday," Ichigo forged on after a few moments. I glanced at him, then at Grimmjow, and then back to the rice cooker. "I mean, yeah, I voluntarily took a gap year and I have a job, but it's still. Just. Really weird."

"_We_ never had to go through high school," I stated, turning around and leaning against the counter. "I mean, I did it online, but I had a reason." Like, a 'voice in my head telling me to kill other people' kind of reason. "And. Well. He's not exactly _human. _So."

"Hey! I am _very_ human," Grimmjow protested, twisting around in his chair to get a decent look at me, disgruntled expression on his face. A year later, and he was still coming to terms with the fact that he was very surprised me a bit to hear him own up to that fact, and willingly.

"Yeah, _now_." I shook my head quickly, casuing the chunk of hair that I had clumsiy pinned back in eariler to fall back into my face. "Anyway, we haven't had to adjust like that. Not like you have."

"But you both did have to adjust to not being in Las Noches doing . . . doing whatever it was you did there. So it's almost the same thing, right?" I had to admit that he did have a point; it had been harder for me to adjust to not being there anymore, mostly becuase it had been in Hueco Mundo that I had come to terms with the fact that the voice in my head that had been there for as long as I could recall was actually an entirely different entity from myself.

"Kind of," I said at length. "Like, I get where you're coming from, but-"

"But don't you have friends from school or whatever to commiserate with instead of sitting at our kitchen table? You know, people who actually fucking understand what you're talking about?" I frowned at Grimmjow, who smirked at me; it just made me frown harder.

"None of them took gap years," Ichigo immediately explained. "They're all off at University. You two are the only people currently in Karakura that I know around my age group that have actually been involved in the same weird shit I've been involved in."

Point for Ichigo.

"And Rukia's always in the Soul Society, so don't even start on that part, fucker," Ichigo carried on quickly. I must have missed something in mentally tallying up the point system I had developed over the past year (Grimmjow had only 70 compared to Ichigo's 81). When my eyes focused again, Grimmjow's mouth was part way open, like he had actually been thinking about saying something about Rukia.

He should have known by that point that Rukia was an off-limits subject, but he just couldn't seem to process the idea that there was something he wasn't supposed to talk about.

"So what did we all get up to today?" I asked quickly, changing the subject immediately. I knew what would have happened if I hadn't: Grimmjow would have fired back, and I would have had a brawl on my hands before I could count to two.

"Some of us had to work today," Grimmjow said after a moment, eyes flicking to my legs. I kicked one of my legs up in the air with a laugh before turning to check on the rice again, glad to know that my plan had worked yet again. "And those are on backward, by the way."

'Those' meaning the faded plaid boxers I wore.

"I haven't left the apartment; do you _really_ think I care?" The rice wasn't done yet. "_Besides_, you're lucky I deigned to put a bra on."

"You probably should have put pants on, too, and taken out all of the pizza boxes," Ichigo said thoughtfully. "Then we could have avoided what will forever be known as the Moldy Pizza Incident."

I hurled the spoon at him.

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><p><em>an: and i'm back. again. because I can't seem to let things go. this will be updated regularly, and since it is nanowrimo and I've already hit 50k for the month, this is my second project. so. _

_i have much in store for this, but please leave me your thoughts! there's a cute little box down there just hungry for some words!_


	2. the lights are so bright

**two: the lights are so bright but they never blind me**

"This," I ground out, gritting my teeth as Grimmjow smacked the shinai in my hands with enough force to make my bones feel like they were going to rattle out of my skin. I was forced to take a step back, feet sliding apart just a little more than I was comfortable with.

Grimmjow swung his own shinai at me at a blinding pace. I rushed to block it clumsily, stumbling to the side _again_ and having to reposition my feet.

We were in the living room of the apartment, sofa and coffee table pushed up against the wall. Despite the shinai in our hands, we were both still in our pajamas. There was no padding on the floor, no protective gear on our bodies, and a manic terror welling up inside of me as Grimmjow's blows became faster and faster.

He was smiling as he did so, enjoying himself as I fought to keep up.

"Is," I grunted, dodging a swipe clearly made at my head. I felt momentarily successful.

Until he whacked me in the bare thigh, causing me to hop away from him with a yelp, losing my footing and my focus.

Before I could react, he hooked my ankle with his foot and sent me careening into the ground. I landed on my back on the bare wood floor, shoulder blades throbbing, another yelp slipping from my mouth.

"Bullshit," I groaned, hand releasing the shinai. It rolled from my fingers and onto the floor of the living room with a quiet _clack_.

The downstairs neighbors probably thought we had a lot of sex.

"_Why_ do you keep winning?" I demanded, flopping one of my hands onto my face, covering my eyes. "And don't feed me that 'I'm experienced' stuff either, because you are _supposed_ to be going easy on me!"

"Your timing's off, and you're too hesitant to fight back," was all Grimmjow said in response, holding a hand out to me. I lifted my hand from my eyes, grabbing the proffered limb, taking my other hand and grabbing his wrist to make it easier to haul me up and off of the floor.

And then I threw all of my weight back down to the floor, taking him with me.

My second landing was a little more painful, given the fact that he landed on top of me with a painful grunt, elbow going into my stomach. All of the air was knocked from my lungs and, if I had thought I had been having trouble breathing before, I was struggling for my next breath.

"_Ow_," Grimmjow hissed into my ear, pushing his face into the side of my neck. "That. That was painful."

"You kind of deserved it," I gasped out. He was _not_ helping me get my breathing under control, especially since he hadn't moved his elbow out of my stomach. All of the air seemed to catch in my lungs as his mouth began to make a trail from the base of my neck upward.

Definitely _not_ helping.

"Why would I deserve something like that?" he asked between fluttering kisses.

"Because you hit me in the thigh!" I retorted, voice higher than usual. "And I can _feel_ it bruising, Grimmjow. Do you treat your students like this?"

"No. My students are less distracting. And they have better timing."

I huffed, pushing my shoulder into his throat. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough leverage to actually make the act mean anything-his body was pinning most of me to the ground.

"Well, my thigh hurts. Kiss it and make it better." I was whining at the point, because my thigh _did_ hurt and it was probably going to bruise.

"Kissing to make the pain go away is a delusional concept," he grumbled into my neck. I rolled my eyes and pushed at his shoulder lightly.

"Really? Because that's not what you were saying when you burnt your palm last week. Or when you burnt the roof of your mouth on the pizza the week before that. Or-"

"Okay, okay, _I get it_." He pushed himself off of me, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. I slumped against the wooden floor, straightening my spine and hearing bits of it pop with the motion.

"You know your muscles are going to start cramping if you just lay there like that."

"You're one to talk," I said with a laugh. "You're doing the same thing!"

"I didn't exert myself, so. I really _am_ one to talk."

Shaking my head, I pushed myself up off of the floor, climbing to my feet unsteadily. Unhurriedly, I stepped over Grimmjow, angling my body in the general area of the bathroom.

"Where are you going," he asked, grabbing onto one of my ankles lightly. I stopped walking, looked down at him. And then I smiled and shook my head, yanking my foot out of his grip.

"To take a shower. _Some_ of us actually exerted ourselves this morning."

* * *

><p>The thing about cell phones is that they ring at the most inopportune times. <em>Especially<em> if you have a terrible ringtone to go along with it.

But even _more so_ when you're making out with your boyfriend in the middle of the kitchen when you should have been drinking tea and mentally preparing yourself for the work day.

"_Why_ is your mother's ringtone a screaming goat?" Grimmjow demanded, slamming his hands down over his ears as my phone continued to scream.

"I have a better question," I said, palming my phone from off of the counter. "Why does she think I'm _awake_ at this hour, and what does she want?"

"Answer it and find out!" That was not what I had wanted him to say, nor had it been the Plan. The Plan had been to let it ring itself out, to let her leave a voice message, to call her back at a socially acceptable time.

Because if I answered it then, she would _know_ I'd been up for a while; there was no way I could possibly make myself sound sleepy. And that would lead to more questions, like what I had been doing up at that hour, and there was no _way_ I was telling her I had been learning how to fight. Because _that_ would lead to more questions as well.

And I did not like answering questions at seven in the morning.

Three rings in and I panicked in trying to make my decision, accidentally hitting the 'accept call' portion of my screen.

Freezing in terror for a moment, I could feel my mouth open wide and a croaking noise came out, and then I realized that she was waiting for a confirmation that I had actually picked up.

I slammed the phone against the side of my face. "Good morning!" I practically shouted into the phone, brightly enough for Grimmjow to raise his eyebrows at me like he was asking _what the hell are you doing_.

Well. So much for sounding like I had only been up for a few minutes.

"Good morning," Mom trilled back, sounding like she had been awake for hours like I had-and like she was surprised that I had even answered my phone. I could imagine her in my head, already dressed in her scrubs for work, a cup of coffee and the morning paper sitting on the kitchen table in front of her. It was her usual morning ritual, _but with a phone_.

The line went quiet for a moment, and I took a deep breath, glancing up from where I had fixed my gaze on the floor. Grimmjow was gone, likely to get into the shower, leaving me with no one to make mouth snide comments to. Which was terrible, because that was the only way I got through most conversations with my mother anymore.

"Uh, hello?" I asked cautiously, frowning and picking up my tea cup with my free hand. "Are you still there Mom?"

"Huh? Oh, yes, I'm here. Sorry. I can't actually believe you answered your phone." I laughed lightly, relishing in the feel of the hot tea in my hands.

_Yeah. Well. Neither can I._

"I always try to answer my phone when you call. I just, you know, don't hear it sometimes." A blatant lie, one that I knew Grimmjow would have laughed at me for. I avoided most phone calls where my mother was concerned, listening to her voice mails and calling her back when I _knew_ she wasn't going to be able to answer.

Phone tag was a skill I had mastered.

"Yeah, but you sound so _awake_." I shrugged, and then realized that she couldn't actually _see_ me shrug.

"Uh, yeah. Neighbors dog woke me up barking this morning." Another lie. The neighbors didn't have a dog; they had three cats and a two year old. "Couldn't bring myself to go back to sleep so I got up and, uh . . . did some yoga?" She knew I had been exercising-on the mornings I wasn't learning how to 'defend myself' (how was I supposed to get my hands on a sword, and _when_ would that skill ever help me?), Grimmjow and I had taken up running. The results of the combination of the two had shown on my body, and Mom had noticed.

"Ah, alright then." She faded out for a second, and I heard her turn a page in her newspaper. I took a sip of tea during the momentary silence, savoring the taste in my mouth. "I was just wondering when you were going to bring your boyfriend over for dinner."

I spat my tea out all over the counter, choking on my saliva. And then I realized that _all over the counter_ really meant all over the papers that my research was stored on, practically slamming my tea cup down on the counter and scrambling to save _some_ of it.

"What?" I squeaked out, throat burning.

"Your _boyfriend_, Kaori. Bring him for dinner tonight. You've been dating for a year and you _still_ haven't brought him around." My hands still on all of the papers that I had been trying to save, eyes the size of saucers.

Grimmjow and I had been living together for a year. Mom had known about him for about eight months of that, though hadn't actually met him. And neither had my sister Mizuri, for that matter. And I had kept brushing it off, because I would have to explain that Grimmjow was the one that had kidnapped me and helped hold me hostage for two months.

And _that_ was something I had explained to her when I had come back from said two months in Hueco Mundo, though she hadn't believed me. Mostly because my story was as unbelievable as something could get, but also because I had been off of my medication for about the same amount of time, making me what the cops had called an "unreliable witness" even though I had been there.

Don't even get me started on the therapists.

Of course, I could always lie to Mom. And it hurt, but I already knew Mom was more inclined to believe me when I was lying than when I was telling the truth.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah! Okay. Uh. Do you want me to, erm. Do you need me to bring anything?" I looked toward the entrance of the kitchen to find Grimmjow looking at me with concerned expression on his face, blue hair dripping wet and hanging into his eyes. I must have looked like a mess, tea splashed all over the counter and countless pages of research.

"Just your boyfriend. Love you." The line went dead before I could respond, before I could tell her that I loved her too.

Before I could tell her that I had suddenly and inexplicably come down with a rather heinous and contagious cold and would not be able to leave my apartment for as long as she wanted to meet said boyfriend.

I groaned and slammed my forehead into the counter, phone almost slipping out of my hand.

"What?" he asked, moving into the kitchen and heading toward the fridge. I straightened up, pulling my blouse down even though it hadn't been out of place to begin with, heaving a heavy sigh.

"We're going to my mom's for dinner tonight," I stated simply, looking at him expectantly. _Maybe_ I could arrange my own kidnapping to get myself out of this mess.

"Yeah? Have fun."

Of _course_ he hadn't heard me properly. "No, Grimmjow, _we_. As in, you and me. As in the two of us, together."

He jerked upright so fast he smacked the back of his head on the top of the fridge with a shout. Turning to me while rubbing the back of his head he said, "What."

"Dinner. At my Mother's. Tonight. Me. You. Baby sister. Said mother."

He came at me at an alarming speed, grabbing me by the shoulders and pushing his face down to my level. "You mean I finally get to meet your family?" he asked, searching my eyes.

"Uh, yeah. I guess?" He closed the gap between our faces immediately, kissing me until my toes curled against the kitchen floor. For a moment, I forgot what it had been I was worried about.

That lasted until he pulled away a few seconds later, smile on his face.

"You're looking at me like that's not a good thing," he said after a moment, smile turning into a frown. "Why are you looking at me like this isn't a good thing."

I opened my mouth. And then I closed it. When I opened it again, I said, "Ugh. Well. You _see_, erm." But the problem was that I couldn't come up with anything at all, no good reason that I had put any of this off for so long.

"I don't understand why you don't want me to meet your mom or your little sister, Kaori. It's really not that big of a deal," he went on, hands sliding off of my shoulders and inserting themselves into his own pockets.

I opened my mouth, and then held my wrist that normally held my watch up to my face like it was the most interesting thing in the world. "Well would you look at _that_!" I crowed, backing up and swiping my purse off of the peg it hung from, swiping my shoes up off of the floor simultaneously "I am going to be terribly late for work if I don't leave right now. Bye!"

I bolted out of the door before he could stop me, pulling my shoes onto my feet as I stumbled down the staircase, freezing cold concrete biting into my bare skin. The icy morning wind bit at my arms through my sweater, reminding me that I had forgotten to snatch my coat in my hasty getaway. There was no _way_ I was going back for it, though.

My watch was still on the bathroom counter.

* * *

><p>I stumbled into the Kurosaki Clinic, teeth chattering, hair still more than little damp from my earlier shower. I couldn't feel my fingers, and my purse felt like it weighed a ton from where it hung on my shoulder.<p>

"Kaori? You're half an hour early." My head whipped to the desk I typically sat at, mildly surprised to see Kurosaki-sensei standing next to it. He was never in the Clinic this early.

"Oh, am I?" I tittered in an attempt to laugh it off. "My watch must be off."

"You're not wearing your watch." I tugged the sleeve of my sweater down over the wrist I normally wore my watch on in a subconscious attempt to hide the fact that I lacked it. How had he even noticed that?

"Like I said, my watch must be off."

Kurosaki-sensei studied me closely for a moment, and I felt like I was slowly and steadily wilting under his scrutiny.

"Are you alright, Kaori-chan?"

"I'm fine, yeah. Totally. Absolutely one hundred percent a-okay!"

I was a pretty good liar.

* * *

><p><em>an: since it IS november, i guess i'll be uploading these as i get them done? just for the spirit of NaNoWriMo. _

_You guys are so fantastic and lovely and. oh my god. i didn't think so many people were excited for this? like okay maybe some of you just can't wait to see the train wreck it turns into but. oh well. i do know what i'm doing this, i know where i'm going, and i (think) i know how it ends._

_but if there's anything you guys want to see specifically, leave it in a review? and i'll see if i could work it in?_

_the cute little box down there is hungry. _


	3. we wait for trains

**three: we wait for trains that just aren't coming**

I received a text on my phone from my mother during my lunch break. _Can't wait for tonight!_ with a smiley face. The food in my mouth turned into ash and I swallowed it uneasily, tossing the rest of my lunch into my purse.

_Yeah!_ I texted her back, also with a smiley face. That was the thing I like about texting-I could easily fake my enthusiasm, and it was so much easier to lie that way. _Maybe_ I could psyche myself out to reflect my texting ability by the time dinner rolled around.

But instead of stewing on the disaster that would surely be tonight, I worked on my thesis a little more. Half of what I wrote I didn't quite understand myself, but that was what the revision process was for. And it was going to take _a lot_ of revising to even make my paper halfway acceptable.

As long as I kept my hands and my mind busy, though, it didn't matter.

"Hey Kaori." I jumped, fingers smashing into the keys of my laptop. Took in a deep breath and looked up to find Ichigo looking down at me, frowning. When had he come into the Clinic? I hadn't heard him come in-I heard _everyone_ come in.

"Whoa, okay," I said, trying to get my breathing back under control. My lungs were getting a work out today, and I couldn't quite tell if that was a good thing or a bad things. "Make a little more noise next time. Please. Mostly so I don't need resuscitated and carted off to the hospital." Although, honestly, getting sent to the hospital _would_ make my mother postpone the dinner.

It wasn't such a bad idea, all things considered.

"Are you alright? You're acting a little weird." I shook my head, and then paused, looking up at him and frowning.

"Could you do me a favor?"I asked. In answer, he gave me a confused look. "Good, thanks. I need you to-to-to slam my head into the desk _really _hard. Like, hard enough to knock me out and give me a reason to get out of dinner with my mother."

"Why do you want out of dinner with your mother?" I realized, then, that Ichigo was probably the worst person I could have asked to do what I wanted him to do-his mom was dead. He couldn't understand what I was going through, and would never be able to. I mean, yeah, it could have been the same with his dad, but Kurosaki-sensei was super excited when he met Rukia (or so I had heard).

"Because she's making me take Grimmjow with me."

"Wait. Either I missed something, or your mom's never actually met that asshole." All I could do was look at Ichigo with a pleading look on my face, and hope he complied with my request.

I had no such luck.

"He's been living you for a _year_, and she hasn't met him yet? Wait, better question. _My dad_ met your boyfriend and has had both of you over to dinner on numerous occasions and your own _mother_ still hasn't met him? What the hell, Kaori." All I could do was keep looking at him pleadingly, hoping he would see my need and just smash my head into the desk.

I could always do it myself, but I tended to hesitate before doing any such thing.

"And stop looking at me like that, because I am _not_ going to smash your head into your desk. Why hasn't your mom met Grimmjow yet?"

It felt like my frown was going to become a permanent part of my face if my life didn't change something soon. "Because, uh. Well. The whole abduction thing? And, you know, when Grimmjow talks half of the time he might as well be sticking his foot in his mouth. And my mom asks super leading questions that Grimmjow will likely give super stupid answers to."

"So you're worried your mom isn't going to approve? Er, like him?"

"A _lot_ of people don't like Grimmjow, Ichigo. Why _else_ would you think I'm worried?"

Ichigo shrugged his shoulders. "You just, you know, never really care about what other people think?" He did have a point-I did _not_ care what other people thought, be it about me or the people I was involved with.

"But this is my _mother_. Now hurry up and smash my head into the desk top!"

"NO."

"You're supposed to be helping me!"

"I _am_ helping you! You'll thank me later."

"I really probably won't."

* * *

><p>I exited the Clinic cautiously after work when my shift ended, shuddering as I was hit by a blast of cold air the second I stepped out of the door. The sweater I had worn that day was thin, pastel pink to match my floral capris.<p>

I had not _planned_ on leaving the house without a coat that morning, nor had I the forethought to keep one at the Clinic just in case. That was something I was going to change, though, because I never knew when I was going to have to make an exit like the one I had this morning. Not like I was planning on making it a habit, but it was always good to be prepared just in case.

The end of the block was in sight before I realized that there was someone following me. I frowned and looked over my shoulder, nearly jumping out of my skin when I realized that the person following me was actually Grimmjow.

"Brought your coat," was all he said in greeting, holding out the black hoodie I had had in my possession for years, an article of clothing that was easily three sizes much too big for my small frame.

"Thanks," I said, taking it from him gratefully and shrugging it on. It fit easily over my purse, even when zipped up. Shoving my hands down into the pockets as far as they would go, I bunched up my shoulders, enjoying the warm feeling of my hoodie that I had missed that morning.

"And your watch," he went on, taking a step that could only be described as one of normal length for him-he had developed a habit of taking smaller steps to match my own. He held my watch out to me.

Grudgingly, I took it from him and shoved it into my pocket, pointedly looking ahead. Mom didn't live too far from the Clinic, and I still didn't know what I was going to do about my impending doom. The way I had made my exit that morning hung heavily on my shoulders as well, a guilt that had settled in halfway to the Clinic that morning.

We made it about three blocks before I broke.

"I'm sorry about this morning. I, uh, I just, er. I panicked, and I really shouldn't have," I said in a rush, hands forming fists in my pockets. "But I'm a nervous loser and don't like going to dinners with my Mom anyway, which you know. And-"

I cut myself off as he slung his arm over my shoulders, pulling me close. I stumbled a moment before regaining my balance, the side of my face pushed up against his chest. It made me much warmer than I had been before, even with my hoodie.

"I know," he said as we turned a corner. Mom's house was in sight, and the sinking feeling entered my stomach again. Maybe if I hadn't waited a year to take Grimmjow to dinner, my stomach wouldn't be a mess. I definitely wouldn't feel quite as guilty for putting it off for so long.

And the idea of facing my mother likely wouldn't seem so daunting.

"Wait. So you're agreeing that I'm a nervous loser?"

"Yeah?" I elbowed him in the ribs, and all I got in return was the feeling of his laugh in my ears. We had reached the bottom of the stairs that led up to my mother's front door, and my feet felt like they were lead. My mouth felt as though I had eaten a ton of sand, parched from the nerves.

"Are you going to be okay? You look like you're about to pass out," he asked quietly. I gulped.

"Yeah. I'm fine." And then I pulled away from him, slipping out from under his arm and grabbing his hand, tugging him up the stairs. I had eight steps to steel my nerves, eight steps to prepare myself for what I was sure was going to be disaster.

Reaching the last of them I paused, pulling my free hand out of my pocket and raising it to knock on the door. Pausing, I took a deep, steadying breath, feeling the bracing cold air fill my lungs.

I didn't even have a chance to knock before the door swung open, so suddenly and with such a speed I nearly jumped backward and tumbled down the stairs.

"This is _not_ okay," I said loudly and grumpily, frowning at Mizuri.

"What's not okay?" she asked, trying not to smile at me. She _knew_ what I was going to say, and it had nothing about the door.

"You and I _should not be eye level_." I was the older sibling. The big sister. Mizuri was the baby, ten years my junior.

And we stood eye level. I could not see over her head, as I had in the past, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I couldn't even look her directly in the eyes-I would have to look _up_, and I was already surrounded by enough tall people as it was.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she stated simply, tilting her chin up and looking over my shoulder. "I'm Mizuri, by the way. In case my darling sister neglected to inform you that she had a sibling." That was the thing about Mizuri-she was incredibly smart, and tended to use her knowledge for evil. Er, plots that did not benefit me.

Her vocabulary was going to be the death of me someday, I was sure. Mostly because it wouldn't be long before I could keep up with her, let alone understand half of what she was saying. Or hear half of what she was saying, if she kept _growing_.

"Grimmjow; and she's mentioned it, once or twice." I recalled, vaguely, that Grimmjow had seen Mizuri before. She couldn't see him, and I had thought I was hallucinating at the time, and then I had been abducted.

"Are you going to let us in or do we have to stand out here and freeze?" I demanded, shuddering to try and pull some kind of sympathy out of my sister.

"Normally you just barge in past me if I don't step aside immediately. Besides, _I'm_ warm, and I'm sure we'll agree that that's all that matters." Mizuri, while being younger, had also been doted on and watched closely since before she could even walk.

Just in case she turned out like _me_.

"Yeah, yeah, just let me in."

"Or what? You'll blown down the house?" She laughed then, childishly and full of joy .

I opened my mouth to retort-everything was already going downhill quickly, and we hadn't even made it into the house-but instead there was a shout of, "Mizuri! Let them in!" from somewhere inside.

I stuck my tongue out at Mizuri, whose shoulders slumped as she moved aside to let Grimmjow and I in. The door closed behind us with a finalizing click, and Mizuri threw the dead bolt. I knew the act was out of habit, but I couldn't help but feel like Mom was making sure I couldn't run away from this.

I kicked off my shoes and shrugged off my hoodie, hanging it up on a peg and placing my purse over it. I took Grimmjow's jacket out of his hand as well and put it over my purse/hoodie combination.

Sure, there was another free peg, but why use it? This way, all of our stuff would be easy to grab if I decided we had to make a run for it, locked door or not.

"Mom's in the kitchen," Mizuri said, smirking at Grimmjow and I. I frowned, hunching my shoulders up-of _course_ Mizuri would have picked up on the fact that I had not wanted to bring Grimmjow. Not that it was necessarily hard thing to pick up on, I figured, especially since I had made up excuses for the past seventeen times Mom had asked me to bring him.

I felt like hurling, but there wasn't anything in my stomach to bring up.

"Great." I finally said uneasily. So much for psyching myself up to sound like my text messages.

"Actually," my mother said, coming into the hall. "Dinner's _ready_." Oh thank God. _Thank God._ All of the awkward conversation could take place over dinner, a time when everyone's mouths would be full. Or after dinner, so everyone would be too full to speak, and then we would never have to speak about any of this again.

And the awkward conversations would be avoided.

But then my mother was looking at me expectantly in the bright light of the hall, chin tilted down and an eyebrow raised. As usual, her black hair was tucked neatly behind her ears in a bob, not a single strand out of place.

"Right. Uh. _Mom_, this is Grimmjow," I said, waving vaguely over my shoulder. "And, uh, that's my Mom. You already met the brat. So. Dinner?"

Mom frowned at me, a look that I myself saw in the mirror often enough. But she didn't say anything, just changed her frown to a smile aimed at Grimmjow, and moved into the dining room. Mizuri pranced off after here, and I set a slow pace to the dining room, Grimmjow at my shoulder.

Of course I was going to put everything off for as long as possible. That was just who I was.

Dinner was set out on the table, and Mom and Mizuri had already situated themselves on the side closest to the door-which made our chances of escaping a little slimmer. It was almost like my mother _knew_ I was thinking about making a run for the door.

Cautiously, Grimmjow and I skirted the table and took a seat on the opposite side; I sat across from my mother, and Grimmjow sat across from Mizuri. I knew that either option was dangerous, but Mizuri was the safest bet. That, and I didn't think I could make it through _this_ dinner with her making faces at me.

We made it nearly fives minutes into our food before Mom opened her mouth.

"So how did you two meet?"

I stopped breathing, grip on my chopsticks tightening to the point that I was sure they would break in my hand. "Uh . . ." I began to say. I was unprepared. Completely and utterly unprepared. I had _known_ she was going to ask questions like this, known she was going to grill us until we resembled the fish she had made for dinner.

And, like the idiot I was, I had not prepared answers of any sort.

Nor had I remembered to remind Grimmjow that, _no_, we do not mention the abduction thing. Ever.

This was going downhill so fast I almost wished I was back in Las Noches and convinced I was hallucinating.

"We bumped into each other at the Urahara Shoten," Grimmjow said easily-almost like he had come up with something to say _before_ she had asked the questions. Like he had been prepared for my inability to answer the question; almost like he had _planned_ on it. "And again at the Clinic. And we just kept bumping into each other, so we figured we should start doing it on purpose."

And just like that, all of the tension was gone. All of the panic left my mind, and the rest of dinner went by, leaving me wondering why I had been panicking in the first place.

* * *

><p>We left my mother's house that night with hugs and the promise of coming by again soon. Neither of us heaved a sigh of relief until we had reached the next house at least.<p>

"That went surprisingly well," I said, pulling my hood up over my head before shoving my free hand into my pocket. There was already a little bit of frost forming on the sidewalk before us, and I knew it was going to be a cold night.

Grimmjow didn't answer me, his hand like a vice on my own.

"Your mom is fucking _terrifying_," he got out once we were at the end of the street. His knuckles were white from where they were gripping my hand. All I could do was laugh at him, throwing my head back and watching as white clouds left my mouth under the dull light of the street lights.

"She means well," I said at length. "She _did_ have to care for Mizuri and I single handedly for most of our lives, especially with my . . . _condition_. And then she had to handle my disappearance and my completely crazy story of where I was. Which, _by the way_, she still doesn't believe. "

"I know that. That was part of the reason I _lied_. The other part was because I was pretty sure she was going to kick my ass if I said anything about having a hand in abducting you."

I laughed then, loud and full and ringing through the night air. The weight and nervousness I had been suffering from all day was gone, and I felt lighter than I had been in a while.

My steps slowed as we reached the end of a second block, causing Grimmjow to slow as well.

I stood up on my toes, tugging him down to meet me halfway before kissing him soundly.

"What was that for?" he asked once we started walking again.

"For accidentally underestimating you. Which I won't do again, now that we've faced _that_ dragon."

"Did you just call your mother a dragon?"

". . . maybe?"

He shook his head. We made it halfway down another street before he asked, "Do you think she liked me?"

I thought for a moment before I answered. "Well, she _didn't_ whisper anything like 'I don't like him' or 'kill the spare' in my ear, so I think you're approved. I mean, not that her or I have any prior experience at this sort of thing but. Yeah."

"When you're writing your papers for class, do you end sentences like that? But. Yeah." I elbowed him in the ribs again lightly; I could probably do it with much more force and still not hurt him.

"I do _not_!" I retorted, making a mental note to count how many times I _did_ do so once the revision process rolled around.

Just outside of the light of the streetlamps, in the spot where it was hard to make anything out, something moved.

* * *

><p><em>an: you guys are so nice, and there is a plot-i promise. i'm getting there. _

_please drop a review in the box? my phone makes a funny noise when you do. _


	4. you look like my next mistake

**four: you look like my next mistake**

"Grimmjow," I said quietly, stopping in my tracks. He walked past me and nearly kept walking, stumbling to a stop when he realized I was no longer moving. My eyes were trained on the spot that something had moved in-_was_ moving in.

"Kaori, wha-"

"Shush," I hissed, clenching the hand that held his. He quieted immediately, moving closer to me out of instinct.

The thing in the shadows was still moving outside of the lamplight, in the shady space where it was hard to make out one thing from another but still easy enough to know when something was _off. _

"Do you see that?" I asked lowly, very much aware of the fact that we were both completely defenseless against whatever it could possibly be. It was much, much too large to be cat, and I was certain that it wasn't human. That left only one other option in my mind:

Hollow.

Grimmjow moved even closer to me, my shoulders pushing into his chest. Unlike my time in Hueco Mundo, Grimmjow would not be able to fight anything that came our way that wanted to kill us-not anything that had reiatsu, at least.

"See what?" he asked, so quiet that I almost didn't hear him. My throat felt like it was closing up, not just from the fact that was something in the shadows, but also because Grimmjow couldn't see it. That shouldn't have surprised me, though; he didn't have a shred of spiritual pressure, not anymore.

I opened my mouth to say something, to tell him that something was stirring in the shadows.

But then it was gone, like it had never been there in the first place.

My jaws snapped together with a loud noise, sending pain throughout my mouth. Blinking rapidly, I kept my eyes trained on the spot that the thing had been, refusing to move my head or a single muscle that I could live without.

"Kaori," Grimmjow said, voice back it's normal volume. His hand was tight against my own; I could feel the bones of his fingers digging into the back of my hand, feel the unsteady rise and fall of his chest against my shoulders. "What is it? Whats-"

"It's gone," I said unevenly, voice wavering and too harsh against my ears. "It-It was there, and then it wasn't. Like it disappeared."

"You've been under a lot of stress today," he said at length, squeezing my hand slightly before taking a step. I stumbled forward and caught myself on shaky legs, and after a moment we were walking again like we hadn't stopped to begin with. "I think you might just need some sleep."

I did not like the fact that Grimmjow couldn't _see_ Hollows anymore. At least then, even if we couldn't defend ourselves, I would still have the comfort of knowing that I was right; that something _was_ there, that I wasn't just seeing things.

"Y-yeah. Sleep. Right," I agreed shakily, tearing my eyes off of the spot the form had been in, setting my gaze firmly forward.

_Wrong_, a small voice in my head whispered. Sleep and stress might have been what was wrong, but a large part of me didn't think that that was the problem.

But if I could pretend it was, that would be more than enough for the time being.

* * *

><p>It was not enough.<p>

Less than a week later, it happened again.

I was walking home alone, phone in one hand. My keys were in my other hand, curled into a fist, the blade of my key held firmly between my thumb and forefinger, like I was ready to unlock the door to my apartment.

My apartment, which was still eight blocks away.

Walking home like that, by myself, was more than normal. But since I had first seen the Hollow that Grimmjow hadn't seen, he had been a little on edge. The 'call when you're leaving and stay on the phone the whole time, you don't actually have to talk just _be on the phone_' kind of on edge. The 'I'm waiting for you after work and I'm going to walk you home' kind of on edge, though I had put an end to that immediately.

I had just reached the relative safety of the light of a street lamp when the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, sending a tingle down my spine. It was eerily quiet for six in the afternoon-well, night, since darkness had decided it was a great idea to descend nearly an hour before.

Most of the air left my lungs in a slow exhale, rising up into the chilly air in a white cloud before me. My fingers tightened on my phone, heart pounding in my ears.

I took a few tentative steps forward, ears straining to hear over the noise of my heart and the harsh sound of my breathing and the static of the active call in my hand. For a moment, I thought about holding the device up to my ear, telling him I was going to stay where I was until he came and got me.

Stopping in my tracks, I took a calming breath, recalling my exact location. Eight blocks from home, standing just on the far edge of the street light, terrified for no discernible reason.

My phone was halfway up to my ear when the non rational part of me decided that that was a stupid idea. I might have been short and slim and scared to death, but I wasn't about to stand in the dark waiting for Grimmjow to come and walk me home, not when I had so vehemently shot the idea down in the first place.

With my resolve strengthened, I brushed the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched, that there was something in the dark that I couldn't see, off and took another step forward, out of the relative safety of the street light.

And then I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder.

In the very edges of the light the street lamp gave off, opposite to where I stood, something lurked. It was easily taller than I was, though little wider-from what little I could pick out in the poor lighting, it looked to be skeletal with skin draped over it like paper mache, and then clothes that were much, much too large.

The thing took a shaky step into the lamplight, limbs moving jerkily like they were both too long for it's body and it didn't have full control over them.

Bile rose in my throat as I fully took in what had had been behind me.

It was taller than me by a few feet, but it was also practically doubled over. Not in pain, but like it couldn't keep itself upright. Even looking at in when it had been a shadow, I knew why-the human looking head and the mass of long, sickly white hair that brushed the ground below it was too heavy for it's elongated, thin body to hold upright.

Deep black holes sat where eyes typically would have been, black holes on a pasty face. My earlier assessment of paper mache felt a little too accurate as I took in the too-white skin stretched across the sharp, angular bones of it's face, all of it cracked and peeling.

The only color I could discern in the poor lighting was it's mouth. Near it's razor sharp chin and weak jawline was a mouth that looked too big for the thing's face, it's lips torn to shreds and coated in what looked like blood that was both new and old.

My stomach rolled, the taste of acid burning at the back of my throat as I fought to keep my lunch down. My limbs felt like lead; there was some part of me that just couldn't stop staring at it, two parts revulsion and one part curiosity.

I couldn't turn and run, even if I wanted to.

It held a long, bone white finger up to it's bloodied lips in the universal sign for 'be quiet.' A painful looking smile stretched out across it's face behind the digit, revealing a mouth filled with knife sharp black teeth, too many of them squished into the space at odd angles, all of them crashing into each other.

"Kaori, you there?" Grimmjow's voice crackled through the speaker on my phone, cutting through whatever it had been that made me incapable of moving.

I yelped at the sudden noise, forgetting that I had turned up my phone so loud, eyes ripping from the thing to the device in my hand. With violently shaking hands I brought the phone up to my ear, breathing harsh.

When I looked forward again, the thing was gone.

"Yeah, I'm here," I said, trying my best to sound calm over the phone. Turning in quick circles, I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of the ghastly terror to make sure it wasn't in my immediate area, lurking.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?" I knew I sounded far from okay. Even to my own ears, my voice was shaky and raw. My pulse thrummed under my skin with enough force and frequency that I was sure Grimmjow could almost hear it over the connection.

"Because you don't sound okay? You sound scared."

I couldn't see the thing anywhere.

"Uh," I said, groping for an answer. There was little I could come up with on the fly that would be believed, and even less answers that would make sense, and I wasn't about to tell him what I had been faced with, especially since he couldn't do anything about it. "A cat jumped in front of me out of some bushes. Startled me. Nothing big."

_Liar. _

* * *

><p>The Urahara Shoten was small and peaceful as it normally was.<p>

Well, as normally as it could be, with two teenagers and three former high ranking members of the Soul Society-one of which could turn into a cat.

All of which liked to cover my apartment in sticky notes. Why they were so fascinated with doing so completely eluded me, though had led me to think of setting my apartment on fire on more than one occasion.

I still ran errands for Urahara on some days, stopping in for tea when I was done. I even stopped in for tea sometimes when I didn't have any errands to run, or if he asked me to stop by for some reason I could never properly discern.

That day, I had not been asked to stop by. I had no errands to run for him. I had no discernible reason to be there, other than the fact that I needed to know what I wasn't just _seeing_ things. That they were actually there.

That I was not rapidly descending into madness yet again, and this time for a reason Urahara couldn't explain.

I entered the Shoten through the side door, kicking off my shoes and lining them up with everyone elses-I could tell from the pairs that the kids were in school, and Tessai was out somewhere. It was hard to tell when Yoruichi was there or not, especially since the woman walked around looking like a cat so often.

"Hello?" I called out, treading farther inside of the back part of the Shoten. "Urahara?"

"Kaori-chan!" came his jubilated call. "You're just in time for tea!"

Of course, it was almost always tea time at Urahara's; I would have been surprised if his blood actually turned out to be tea with the sheer amount he consumed. Not that I would actively test that theory.

I found him quickly, seated in the room he typically accepted visitors in, trademark green bucket hat firmly on his head and a cup of steaming tea in his hand. But it wasn't just him in the room, as was far from typical, especially since Ururu, Jinta, and Tessai were all gone; I hadn't seen Yoruichi in a while, either. And that list was about as many people as were allowed in the back of the Shoten, Ichigo excluded since he avoided coming by at all costs.

Which was why it was _weird_ to see another person sitting at the table, cup of tea sitting in front of her. Her honey colored hair was braided tightly and draped over her shoulder, the tail of it ending just above her elbow. Her mouth was open like she was in the middle of a sentence and had stopped mid-word when I had appeared in the doorway.

That was _weird_, because Urahara almost never had company.

"Afternoon, Kaori-chan," Urahara greeted warmly, motioning to the spot where my teacup was already waiting, its contents inviting after my walk in the biting cold. "Have a seat, drink with us!"

"The way you phrased that makes it sound like there's more than just _tea_ in those cups," I said, cautiously taking a seat on the floor across from the woman. There was a healing scar on her face, stretching in a jagged line from her jaw to the edge of her right eyebrow, the thickest bit of it on her cheek.

"There's _definitely _more than just tea in mine, but you don't have anything to worry about," the woman said with an easy smile. "I'm Tsukino Yuna, Third Seat, Sixth Division." None of what she said after her name made sense, so I smiled at her widely.

"Kozume Kaori, errand runner, phone answerer," I replied, earning myself a laugh from the honey haired woman.

"Yu-chan is a Shinigami," Urahara said by way of explanation, knowing I didn't understand a single word that had come out of her mouth after her name. "Though she's here on vacation."

"Oh good," I said, picking up my cup of tea absentmindedly. I had been worried, briefly, that I wouldn't be able to tell Urahara what I had seen, that I would have to keep my mouth shut and keep the experience to myself longer than I wanted to.

"Why is that good?" Urahara asked. I hadn't thought of how I was going to phrase any of what I had come to tell him-I had wound up at the Shoten just with the intent to tell him what it was that I had seen. I had no plan beyond that.

"Have either of you, erm, _sensed_ Hollows in the area lately?" I asked instead of answering, picking my words carefully. My eyes stayed trained on the tea cup I held just scant inches off the table, hand oddly steady despite the fact that every time I closed my eyes, the thing from last night danced across the backs of my eyelids.

"No," Yuna answered immediately. I looked up at her, somewhat startled by how quickly she had answered. Her tone had gone from playful to serious in a heartbeat, and her posture had before. Earlier, she had been sitting relaxed, leaning against the table and her shoulders sloped. Now, she sat up straight, eyes alert, her focus on me. "Not that I've actively been looking around for it, since I _am_ on vacation."

I knew that every Shinigami varied on how well they could sense reiatsu. I knew that there was a large chance that it was likely no one else had felt either of the things I had seen. But I could have at least _hoped_ that there was some bigger indicator that I could rely on to know that I wasn't just _seeing_ things.

The sharp sound of Urahara's fan sliding open made me jump and twist toward him, heart pounding in my chest. I was jumpier than I had been in Las Noches, and even more nervous than I had been after my return. The only part of Urahara's face I could see was the part that wouldn't tell me what it was he was thinking.

"What exactly did you see, Kaori?"

I explained what I had witnessed to the both of them in the matter I had found myself explaining most things to Urahara-concisely, without skirting over the details, no matter how much they scared me to think about. But I plunged in and forged on, explaining the shadow first and then last nights apparition.

"That doesn't sound like anything I've seen before," Yuna said after a tense few moments, frown tugging at her features. I noticed for the first time, that her eyes were almost the same color as her hair and surrounded by thick lashes. Something between confusion and fascination, like an itch beneath her skin she didn't know existed.

"The problem is, you aren't sure if you saw them or not, right Kaori?" Urahara asked, his fan still up in front of his face. The silly object hadn't moved an inch since he had whipped it out; not for the first time, I wondered what it was that he was thinking, and if I would even want to know.

"Basically," I said with a nod. "I was alone when I saw the-the _big_ one, the. The weird one. Grimmjow was with me when I saw the shadowy thing. So it's not like I can be _certain_ I saw either of them, since Grimmjow can't see them anymore." Urahara moved his fan just slightly, not enough to make a difference in what I could see of his face, but enough to let me know that he had moved it.

He never moved his fan, not unless there was something he was keeping back.

"That's the thing," Urahara started with a titter. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't see his face, didn't like how Yuna shifted and tilted her head, frown tugging down on the corners of her dainty mouth.

"He can't fight them, Kaori, but he has enough reiatsu to see them."

And that.

That made me feel sick to my stomach.

"Oh," I said at last, unevenly and faint. Because Grimmjow could _see_ them and hadn't said anything to me about it, even though we had purposely skirted several lower classed ones over the past few months without saying a word. And since he _could_ see them, then that meant that he really hadn't seen the shadowy thing two weeks prior.

My hands were trembling, but my mind refused to think about what any of it meant.

Urahara leveled me with a steady gaze from behind his fan before he continued, picking his words out carefully. "Kaori-chan, it's possible that these might be a . . . a _side effect_ from your exposure to Hideki."

The floor felt like it slid out from beneath me.

* * *

><p><em>an: yay,new chapter! actual plot! whoo! this would have been up sooner, and hopefully i'll be able to write faster now that i've pumped this one out? its hard to say since the new pokemon games come out tomorrow. so. _

_Yuna is another OC, and she's from something else I'm working on. Something else that isn't coming together as neatly as I would like it to, but is slowly but surely coming together. _

_thank you for reading, and please drop a line in the little box down there? hit the 'post review' button? i love you guys._


	5. we play dumb

**five. we play dumb, but we know exactly what we're doing**

"No," I said immediately, shaking my head. "No, no, no, no, _no_."

My throat felt like it was tightening up, breaths coming in short, quick gasps. I wasn't sure if my heart was still beating, and fainting felt like it was more than just an option. Vomiting was also an option.

But suffering from overexposure to Hideki? That was _not_ an option.

"How," I began after what felt like ages of the duo staring at me, voice thick. My eyes were closed; I felt like if I opened them, then the stinging sensation behind my eyes would turn to tears. "How can we be _sure_?"

"We can't!" Urahara said cheerfully. My eyes flew open; I began to choke on my spit, what little of it was left in my mouth. _We can't_, ringing again and again in my ears on repeat.

"Kisuke!" Yuna snarled; she might have said something after that, but I was too focused on what he had said.

_We can't. _Can't be sure that I was hallucinating, that I was ill again. Which meant that there was a small chance that whatever had happened, whatever it was that I had seen, was an isolated incident. But there was no way to know that _that_ was the truth, either.

My mind was on the edge of a knife, liable to fall either way if it hadn't already. And there was no certain way to _know_, not for sure. It wasn't like I could walk into my therapist's office and tell her, "My friends and I can see monsters, but suddenly I'm seeing some and they can't." Because _that_ would go over so well.

For the first time in what felt like ages, I genuinely missed Hideki, even though _he_ was likely to blame for my current predicament.

I had thought that I had been doing good, adjusting to life without Hideki. Adjusting to living a semi-normal life, despite the fact that I had spent two months of my life on an entirely separate plane of existence against my will. Spending two years trying to adjust to the fact that the people who had kept me safe were either dead or had dumped me in an alley and washed their hands of me. Countless therapists, all with the same words in their mouths: _Unstable, Stockholm Syndrome, take your medication. _

Hideki had still been with me, then. A snarky voice in the forefront of my mind, guiding me through the endless appointments and follow ups with the police, one of us parroting the same things we had told all the others: The story no one believed.

Then we moved to Karakura Town, and I had lost Hideki. But within twenty four hours, I had found someone who believed me about what had happened to me, how I had disappeared, _why_ I had disappeared. Within another day after that, I had found myself with another person who believed me and a job.

A year later, I walked into the Shoten to find Grimmjow sitting there like he had been there the whole time. Like he had been _human_ and _whole_ the entire time; like two years hadn't passed, like I had not thought him dead.

Of _course _setbacks were normal, after all of that. Setbacks were to be expected, and nothing to get down and out about. I had had plenty of setbacks over the past three years, and I had marched through all of them: Through the nightmares, the panic attacks, the feeling that carrying on just wasn't worth it.

To get through all of that only to come out on the other side hallucinating again made the past three years and my slow road to recovery seem worthless.

The very thought nearly pushed me over the edge of tears. Instead of allowing them to fall, I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes, rubbing them harshly, taking deep breaths.

_I will stay calm. I will keep a level head. _

But the more Urahara's words sank into my skin (_we can't know, possibly a side effect, Hideki, Hideki, Hideki_), the harder I found it to stay calm.

I took a shuddering breath, and then I did what I did best: I pushed it all out of my head, pushed it into a little box at the back of my mind that said 'Open Never.' Because ignoring my problems was the thing I did best, and I didn't see why it would fail me now.

Then I opened my eyes.

Urahara had a large red splotch on his cheek; Yuna held his trademark fan in one of her hands. She was fanning herself with it lazily, whiskey colored eyes focused on me. She was in the exact same spot she had been in before Urahara had sprang any of that on me, and I wondered how she had managed to wrangle the item away from him. After a moment, she flicked her gaze to Urahara, and her whole face hardened into a look that said, _Go ahead_.

"What I meant to say," Urahara said, smile stuck on his face like his muscles were frozen, "is that it is _possible_ that whatever it is you're seeing is a side effect from Hideki. And I'm sure we can come up with a way to figure it out."

Whatever it was Yuna had said to him when I had retreated in on myself, it must have been terrifying, especially if she now held custody over his fan.

"Of course, that might take a while. In the meantime, you might want to consider preparing yourself for the chance that this isn't a false alarm!" Urahara continued on brightly, digging himself into a hole that I wasn't sure he would be able to claw himself out of.

None of that was an okay thing to say to someone in the middle of a crisis.

In the blink of an eye, Yuna had snapped the fan shut and thrown it with startling accuracy with a single flick of her wrist. It hit Urahara square in the nose before clattering to the table.

"Kisuke!" she said, leaning toward Urahara. There was blood coming out of his nose, and he didn't seem to notice. "What did we _just_ talk about?"

"I'm preparing her, Yuna! Just in _case_." The way he said it, I was sure that there was no doubt in his mind that I was wandering out of the lane marked 'sane' and into the one that would put me into an institution.

_Possible side effect my ass_, I thought mulishly. Urahara, I could already tell, had no plans on helping me figure out if what I had seen was a fluke or not. He had already shoved me off into a box and sealed it up tight.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes again.

Then announced, "Well, that was helpful. I'm going." Urahara didn't move an inch at my voice, at the frostiness that I had tried to force into it. It had come out weaker than I had intended, less cold and more on the verge of tears.

"Here," Yuna offered, standing. She was taller than I was, maybe a couple of inches shorter than Grimmjow. Her limbs were long and willowy, though from the way her long sleeved shirt stretched at the shoulders I knew that said limbs were muscled. "I'll walk you home."

From the way she smiled at me, I knew she wasn't about to take 'no' for an answer. Not that I had been tempted in the slightest to tell her no, at least-the _idea_ that I was hallucinating again shook me to the core. Being alone, even for a moment, didn't seem like something I could handle very well without breaking down.

Yuna seemed like a trustworthy enough person, even if I had only met her less than an hour before. Between her easy smiles and open face, it was hard not to.

That, and I was afraid she might throw the fan at me if I turned her down.

"Yeah," I said, pushing myself to my feet. My knees were shaking."Yeah. That-that sounds good."

"Perfect; I'll meet you out the side door." She smiled at me, glared at Urahara, and then exited the room.

Urahara still had the fake smile plastered to his face. I shook my head at him and turned to leave, fisting my hands and shoving them into the pockets of my jeans.

He didn't say a word as I stalked out of the room.

* * *

><p>Yuna and I were a block and a half away from the Shoten before I figured I should text Grimmjow-he was, after all, <em>aware<em> that I had seen something that had unsettled me. It had been clear on my face last night, no matter how hard I had tried to hide it. He hadn't pressed for an answer, though, so I hadn't given him one.

_On my way home. I have an escort. _I shoved my phone back into my messenger bag without waiting for answer, catching a glimpse of both a textbook and my laptop. I would be lucky to get my coursework done at this point, let alone my thesis paper, but I had other things to worry about.

"Can we take a detour? I want to see where you were when you saw them," Yuna said, breaking the silence. I frowned at the question-why would she want to see a patch of sidewalk? There had been nothing there, according to everyone else.

"Sure," I agreed softly, nodding my head. It was already well past dusk, the days getting shorter the closer we got to winter, the air frigid. Her short leather jacket ended just a few inches into her rib cage, leaving a good bit of her abdomen exposed to the biting air through the fabric of her shirt.

"Not that we _have_ to, if you don't want. I just want to look around." What was it she wanted to look at? The sidewalk? The street lamp? A little pebble I had scuffed with my shoe?

"It's fine," I insisted, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. I would have to dig my gloves out of the closet soon; it was only going to get colder. "It's not like I'm afraid." I wasn't, not really; Hallucinations couldn't hurt me , not physically. I had grown up with that knowledge. Mentally was an entirely different story, however, but I was feeling so numb that it was sure nothing more could hurt me that day.

"Nothing to fear but fear itself," Yuna declared proudly, nudging me in the arm with her elbow with a wink. "Well, other than your mom when she finds out you've been sneaking sake out of the cabinet when no one's looking." She shuddered at the thought, like her words had dredged up some memory she had repressed. "Or your fiance, when you're supposed to be with the wedding planners and are instead taking a nap."

"Your sister," I supplied after a moment with a smile, "when you told her you'd pick her up from school one day and show up two months late with a pineapple pizza." Yuna's teeth were bright white in the dark as she threw back her head and laughed, the noise echoing down the street.

"I like you," she said after a moment. "I really do."

* * *

><p>Nothing.<p>

There was _nothing_ out of the normal at either spot I had seen the possible hallucinations at. It all looked the same as it had just hours before, the exact same as it had when I had seen the apparitions.

We were at the second location now, just eight blocks away from my apartment, standing directly under the street light. The poor, eerie lighting lent an odd sheen to Yuna's features, painting the shadows on her face harsher than they should have been and making her harder to read. Tendrils of her hair had worked themselves free of her braid, chunks of it curling around her face.

"So you were standing _there_ when you saw it, yeah?" Yuna was asking, taking a couple of steps back from me and glancing to her left.

"No," I said. We had gone through this once already, about a block from Mom's house; I hadn't dropped by to say hello. "I was back there-" I motioned over my shoulder, "-and it stood a little farther back from where you are, just barely out of the street lamp's reach."

Yuna took three massive steps backward, eyes trained on me. I waved a hand at her and she stopped, just outside of the edge of the lamplight. It was, from what I could tell, the exact spot the hallucination had stood in when I had first seen it.

"So it was _here_, and then it moved forward?" In the shoddy light, the scar on her face looked fresher and deeper than it had before; it stood out, the defining feature on a face that I hadn't memorized.

A terrible fate, to be remembered as nothing but a scar.

"Yeah," I answered. "And then it, y'know, _shushed_ me like I was going to say something." I was already in a much, much better mood than I had been when we had departed from the Shoten; at least Yuna was making an effort to help me. She didn't even know me!

"And where were you standing again?" She had dropped into a crouch, long fingers pressing into the concrete, eyes trained on the ground below her.

"Back. . . here." I moved, twisting on my heel and shambling over to the very edge of the street lights reach. When I stopped and faced her again, she had tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowed in concentration.

"And you stayed there the whole time?"

"Until it was gone, yes."

"What, did it walk off? Fade out?" she asked creeping forward a couple of feet, still in her crouch. It was almost like an awkward crab walk across the chilly pavement. "How did it leave?"

"I don't know. I looked down at my phone, because it . . . it startled me. And when I looked back up, it was gone. Like it hadn't even been there to begin with."

"So you were faced with this terrifying thing and you looked at your phone?" she asked, incredulous tone in her voice, looking up at me with her eyebrows raised. It almost looked like the words 'stupid millennial' were running through her mind, even though she looked like she couldn't be more than twenty five.

"Since this whole thing started, my boyfriend's been a little, erm, protective? And since I won't let him physically walk me home, he insisted on at least staying on the phone with me. And apparently I'd been quiet for a little too long, because he said something, and then I remembered that I had the phone in my hand."

Yuna nodded in understanding, eyes back on the ground, her fingers lightly skimming over the pavement. I kept my mouth shut and watched her, wondering just what it was that was going through her head, what she was doing.

She seemed so concentrated on whatever it was that I felt it would be rude to ask.

"Right," she said after a few more moments, startling me and jumping to her feet, clapping her hands together. "Let's get you home then!"

* * *

><p>We were nearly a block from my apartment building before Yuna spoke again. I had been too nervous to break the silence, too involved in trying to stave off the idea that Urahara had already given up on me before I even had a chance to see if I was truly hallucinating or not.<p>

"Unfortunately, I can not tell you for sure that what you saw was a fluke." The words came out of her mouth like she had been thinking on them for a while, wondering just how to phrase them. "But I will be at the Shoten for another two weeks or so. If it happens again, just call Urahara and tell him to throw me the phone. We'll figure out where to go from there."

I pursed my lips; what was it she had felt, or seen, or whatever? Of course, I knew that the chances of all of this being a one time occurence were slim to none, but she made it sound as though she believed otherwise.

"Thank you," I told her sincerely. It was nice to have someone actively trying to help me make sense of what it was that was going on with me for once. Compared to people telling me constantly what I should be feeling, what medication I should be ingesting, how I should be acting compared to how I was acting, anything was welcome.

I didn't want my life to go back to how it had been before my untimely abduction.

"For what?"

"This," I said, motioning broadly. "Walking me home, looking at the spots for me-you didn't have to. You don't even _know_ me."

She smiled and shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket, nearly smashing me in the shoulder with her elbow. "First off, if I had to have been in the Shoten for even five more minutes I was probably going to yank my hair out. Secondly, I feel a little obligated; after all, you don't deserve that kind of treatment, especially from Urahara. Third, you should probably answer your phone because that's, like, the eighth time it's vibrated in your bag."

I hadn't even noticed it had been going off until then; I faltered a moment, shoving a hand down into my purse and groping blindly for the mobile device. I found it in a matter of seconds, but nearly dropped it as I drew it out.

I didn't look to see who was calling before I answered it in a hurry, smashing the cold thing into the side of my face with _way_ more force than I intended to.

"Hello?"

"Are you _dead_?" Grimmjow asked immediately.

"If I was dead, would I have answered the phone?" I asked back, mounting the stairs with a hand on the freezing cold railing.

"You didn't answer the first two times, so I had to be _sure_."

"Yeah, 'cos my corpse is _totally_ going to answer the phone," I snorted sarcastically. "Come unlock the door; my purse swallowed my keys again." An occurrence common enough to be believed, especially since I didn't want to have to dig and dig and _dig_ to find the damned things.

He was home, anyway, and it wouldn't kill him to let me in.

"Maybe I won't let you in," was his undignified response. It was only then that it registered that he was worried-likely not only from me taking so long to get home, but also because I might not have specified who my 'escort' was.

I heard footsteps on the other side of the door approaching, contradicting his words.

"Are you sure about that? Because it sounds like you're already at the door." Beside me, Yuna had a hand clamped over her mouth, her shoulder shoulders shaking with barely contained laughter.

"Just because I'm at the door doesn't mean I'm letting you in, 'ori." I made a mental note to check my phone more often, especially if _this_ was going to be the outcome-talking on the phone with a door separating us, trading passive-aggressive comments.

It felt like my fingers were going to fall off from the cold, but I wasn't about to complain about _that_. If anything,

"Then I guess I'll just have to meander to my mother's and spend the night there. Though I'm _sure_ Ichigo's place is closer, and Kurosaki-sensei would _never_ deny a slumber party with his daughters."

The door opened suddenly and so fast that I stumbled backward, startled, phone nearly slipping out of my hand. I should have been prepared for it; mentioning _any_ of the Kurosaki's was the quickest way to end an argument, no matter how small.

"Oh, look, _you opened the door_," I said, recovering quickly from my shock. Hung up my phone, shoved it in my pocket, and smiled at him broadly.

Yuna simply started to laugh harder, hand sliding off of her mouth and nearly doubling over. What about the entirety of the situation was funny to her completely escaped me, but her laugh was an infectious noise that soon had me giggling as well.

Grimmjow simply looked at both of us like we were deranged, and then shook his head. "Get inside before you freeze to death."

"What happened to not letting her in?" Yuna asked, still laughing a little. It was almost like she couldn't _stop_.

"_You _could be a serial killer," was all he said, side eyeing her. I wondered for a moment if he knew she was a shinigami, if he could tell just by looking at her, or by feeling what little reiatsu she gave off.

"If I was, I would have killed her by now," she said sweetly, broad smile blooming across her face. "On top of that, if I did it _now, _you would be a witness. Besides, I think Kaori has more common sense than to run off with a serial killer, don't you?"

"That depends," I said slowly, inching my way toward the door where Grimmjow stood. I could feel the heat rolling out of the apartment, and I couldn't wait to get inside and unthaw my fingers. "Do you define 'running off' about the same as 'being abducted by'?"

"Are you implying that I'm a serial killer?" Grimmjow asked hotly, turning all of his attention to me. Of course, I was _nearly_ in position to slide past him and into the apartment, but he moved to cut me off before I could make it inside.

"Well, no. Not directly. I just meant in a hypothetical fashion." I was fully aware of what he had done to Rukia, of what he had _wanted_ to do to Ichigo. Of what he _had_ done to others. There was blood on his hands, an amount all the soap in the world couldn't wash off.

It was a touchy subject, honestly. One that I probably shouldn't have goaded on in the first place.

"But you _are_ implying that he abducted you?" Yuna asked, eyebrows raised. After a moment, "OH! I get it!" I assumed that, since she 'got it', Urahara must have explained a couple of things to her before I had even shown up at the Shoten unannounced. Like he had been _expecting_ me at any time.

The thought made my skin crawl.

"I'm Yuna, by the way," she introduced herself. "And, as we established, _not_ a serial killer or one who wishes to do any harm to Kaori. Or anyone for that matter. Unless they're Urahara, of course." And then she threw out a conspiratorial wink in my direction. "See y'all later."

She was gone, flouncing away from us and down the stairwell before either of us could register that she had bid her farewell.

"That was . . . odd," I finally said, blinking. It was like she hadn't even _been_ there.

"Yeah, where'd you pick her up at?" Grimmjow asked, taking the hand that still held my phone and tugging me gently inside. He closed the door behind us as I tugged my purse over my head and slung it onto the floor, kicking my sneakers off and on top of it.

"The Shoten; she's visiting Urahara for a bit. Offered to walk me home." I was struggling my way out of my over sized hoodie as Grimmjow walked past me, door locked firmly behind him, stealing a kiss as he went.

The fact that I would have to tell him about the weird humanoid creature that I had seen the night before and that I might have possibly been hallucinating again was nibbling at the edges of my mind. I could feel the panic buliding up in me again, feel my throat closing up and my breathing change.

I knew it would only get worse the longer I waited to tell him

Steeling my nerves, I carefully hung my hoodie on it's designated peg. My hands were shaking again, minor quakes to what I had been through before.

I wasn't sure why I was so worried; I had always been open with him about the fact that Hideki might have left me with long lasting side effects. I just hadn't thought that we would ever actually have to face them, not for a good number of years.

Gritting my teeth, I shuffled nervously into the kitchen. Grimmjow was cooking something, but the very thought of food made my stomach roll.

His back was to me, all of his attention on the task at hand. I watched him for a few moments, appreciating the way his muscles rolled under his almost too-tight t-shirt, how focused he was on the task at hand.

I cleared my throat cautiously, lingering in the doorway of the kitchen. The feeling was coming back into my fingers and my face after being in the cold for so long, something I took note of in the back of my mind.

He turned and faced me almost immediately; I found that I couldn't bring myself to look at his face, to look him in the eyes. The floorboards were suddenly the most interesting thing in the kitchen.

"What's wrong?" he asked after a moment. I knew then that I couldn't not tell him, like I had thought about doing for a split second.

"There's," I started. And then I stopped, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes. My hands were clasped in front of my stomach, fingers digging into the thin skin on the backs of them.

The room felt like it was spinning.

Took another deep breath, kept my eyes closed: "There's a large chance that I am hallucinating again." The words tumbled out in a rush, my voice shaking again.

He pulled me into a hug immediately, fast and tight enough for my breath to hitch and my body to freeze. How he had managed to make it across the small expanse of kitchen that fast eluded me, but his arms were like steel around my small frame.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to keep myself under control, trying my best not to break down in the middle of the kitchen like I wanted to. _A chance, _I told myself. _Only a chance._

My hands worked themselves out from where they had been trapped beneath our bodies, arms finding their way around his middle.

"You seemed to be in an awfully good mood earlier for finding _that_ out," Grimmjow remarked cautiously. It was more than likely that he thought that since I wasn't crying then, I was going to soon. And the longer that he could stave that off, the better off he was.

I laughed in response, the noise bordering hysterical even to my own ears.

"Oh, I'm fucking _terrified_," I admitted.

It was the truth, bare and out there. It was the truth, and I had said it out loud. But the words were easier for me than they could have been, than they had any right to _be_. Easier, because a part of me had always been prepared for Hideki to come back and bite me in the ass. It had only been a matter of time as far as I was concerned, but the fact that it might have been happening shook me.

I didn't want to spend the rest of my life living in fear that my medication might not work.

"However," I continued after a moment, resting my head on his chest, "I am holding onto the infinitesimal chance that I am _not_ suffering from any mental health problems."

_For now, at least._

* * *

><p><em>an: oh, wow. you guys are some of the sweetest, most patient people ever. this took longer than i wanted it to, but everything should start picking up pretty quickly now. hopefully i'll see y'all with another update in a couple of days!_

_please, leave a couple of words in the box down there and hit 'submit' or w/e! i'm a feedback junkie, and your words are my lifeblood. _


	6. this is gonna take me down

**six. this is gonna take me down**

Sick days and I were unfamiliar with each other. So unfamiliar, in fact, that I hadn't actually taken one _ever_, nor had I planned to take one any time soon, even armed with the knowledge that I was on the cusp of a mental breakdown.

Which why it was so confusing to me that I found myself standing on the sidewalk in front of the Kurosaki Clinic, frown on my face and my phone in my limp hand.

"You're taking a few mental health days, Kaori-chan," Kurosaki-sensei had told me cheerfully before unceremoniously ushering me out of the Clinic, like my unscheduled time off was supposed to be _good _news.

It was the opposite of good news, especially since it meant I would actually have to find something to do to take my mind off of the current events of my life. Things like the massive pile of laundry back at the apartment or the quickly piling up coursework I never seemed to have time to do.

Things I didn't _want _to do; things I used work as an excuse to get out of.

As it was, Kurosaki-sensei stood at the top of the small set of steps that led into the Clinic. He was smiling at me reassuringly, but didn't look like he was going to move in any direction to allow me back into the Clinic. I was going to have to take some 'mental health days' whether I wanted to or not.

There was really one one person that I could think of that would tell Kurosaki-sensei about what was going on with me.

I was going to _kill_ Urahara, and I would not do it swiftly.

"But what am I supposed to do?" I whined, inching toward the bottom step of the Clinic. Kurosaki-sensei started to frown when he noticed I was moving back toward the Clinic, so I stopped immediately. I had seen what he had done to Ichigo on countless occasions, all of the flying kicks and the headlocks. He likely would never do it to me, but I didn't want to test that theory.

"Not be here, and not worry about work!" Kurosaki-sensei replied, the cheerful tone still in his voice, and on his face, and comprising the entirety of his posture. It was like the man was trying to be a literal ray of sunshine while delivering a piece of news I never wanted to hear.

"But what am I supposed to _do_?" I demanded again, because his answer, while answering my question, wasn't enough. What was I supposed to physically do?

My mind flitted to Hideki for a moment, wondering what he would say. His snarky voice was a hazy recollection in the back of my mind, a memory that was dredged up without much warning. _You sound like a workaholic, Ka-chan. Why aren't you jumping at the chance to be lazy?_

I pushed it away, steeling my nerves and looking back to Kurosaki-sensei, who still hadn't answered me. "How long until I can come back?"

"That is to be determined, Kaori-chan!" A pause, and then, "Go, make questionable decisions! Be a young adult!"

Before I could ask him if he was suggesting what I thought he was suggesting, he turned around and went back into the Clinic, leaving me in the cold winter air on a deserted street.

"Now what," I grumbled to myself, tucking my hands up under my arms and turning in the direction of my apartment. But I didn't want to go there, because it was empty and held things I had to do. And I couldn't hardly go and bother Grimmjow at work, or Mom and Mizuri since neither of them were home. And though Yuna had been good company and had said she would see me again soon, I didn't want to go anywhere _near_ the Shoten.

I didn't want to be _alone_, though.

I had taken two steps in the direction of my apartment before I realized that there was one person I knew who _wasn't_ busy.

Glancing over my shoulder and sticking my phone into my back pocket, I pivoted on the balls of my feet and dashed up the _other_ set of stairs. The ones that led directly to the door of the Kurosaki household.

More accurately, the set that led directly to the _unlocked_ door of the Kurosaki household.

I opened the door with a flick of my wrist, hardly slowing down as I pushed it open with my shoulder and barreled into the house and out of the cold. Barely managing to get my shoes off of my feet before I had simultaneously closed the door with my hip, I bolted through the hall and up the staircase.

It was more than likely that Ichigo was still sound asleep, but I would change that soon enough. Unless, of course, he was already awake due to my thundering up the stairs and through his home like a bull. That was about as likely as me growing a beard, to be honest.

I barged into his room the same way I barged into his home: loudly, and without much care. "Get out of bed, Ichigo! We're going to go make questionable decisions!"

There was a yelp and a thump and a _bang_, and my eyes finally zeroed in on one Kurosaki Ichigo. Or what I think was Ichigo. It was hard to tell if the writing, blanket twisted shape on the floor was Ichigo or not, especially since the voice uttering curses was muffled and hard to understand.

"Uh, Ichigo?"

"What the _hell_, Kaori!" he sputtered, head popping out of mass of blanket. Even though his bright orange hair was a mess most of the time, it was four times as worse than usual. Yeesh, the bed head gods had _not_ been kind to him.

Well. I had gotten Ichigo up and (mostly) out of bed, but I wasn't sure where I had planned on going from there. I was more an _action_ kind of person instead of a thinking kind of person. _Thinking_ about things before I did them likely wouldn't have placed me in the situation I was in now.

Oh well.

"Let's go get something to eat," I said, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet. It was beginning to feel unbearably _hot_ in the house; I still had my hoodie on, and my scarf was wrapped tight around my neck. "I don't work today, and you don't work _at all_, so. Get off the floor. Get hungry. Get _dressed_."

"Wait, wh-"

"And you can't say no, either. You have five minutes; meet me downstairs."

* * *

><p>The nicest thing about Ichigo Kurosaki as I knew him was that if I barged into his room and told him to do something and gave him only <em>half<em> of the information necessary, he would do it _just_ to get an answer.

Which is how we found ourselves sitting at a McDonald's at 8:30 in the morning, scarves around our necks and coats still on our bodies. The tray with our food-courtesy of a small bit of my last paycheck-sat on the table between us.

Ichigo still looked half asleep, but I felt wired. My right knee was jumping up and down beneath the table, a movement that I wasn't sure when I had began.

"Haven't you already had breakfast?" Ichigo asked, unwrapping his food.

"Yeah. But I was hungry again." Big Macs, fries, Cokes-perfectly healthy breakfast as far as I was concerned

"So you thought you'd wake _me_ up?"

"Well, yeah. I didn't want to be alone."

"And you picked me because?"

"Because you were the only one readily available? And I was right outside of your house. Just go with it, Ichigo." I punctuated the end of my sentence with a bite out of my burger-one that was just a little bigger than I had planned on, which sent ketchup and lettuce down my chin.

I got all the way through my Big Mac before I couldn't take the silence any longer.

"I think your dad fired me this morning?" I began which, honestly, was _not_ the way one should start a conversation. But that was the way I worked; I had figured out a long time ago that if I put _thought_ into how I wanted a conversation to go, it would most definitely _not_ work out that way.

"What."

"Like, he told me to take some mental health days or whatever, and then told me that it was to 'be determined' as to when I would go back. So. It _feels_ kind of like he fired me, because what if I never get better?" It hadn't dawned on me how much I had needed to get a number of things off of my chest, and Ichigo seemed like the best person to vent to.

Especially since he typically vented to _me_ all the time.

"Dad would _never _fire you, Kaori. You're like his third daughter." HIs words, despite all of the turmoil I was going through internally, placated me just enough to jerk back into my semi-normal self.

"True," I said, tilting my head to the side and pointing at Ichigo with the french fry in my hand. "That means that if Grimmjow and I get married, you'll be the brother-in-law to a man who tried to kill you."

And then I stuck the fry in my mouth with a pointed look, but Ichigo didn't have the revolted expression on his face that I had been aiming for.

"If," he said after a moment, taking a drink from his Coke.

"What."

"You said _if_, Kaori. Not when. _If_ you marry him; not when you marry him," he explained slowly. I picked up another fry. Suddenly, they didn't appear as appetizing as they had been just moments before.

"Why are you focusing on my word choice, Ichigo?"

"Because I distinctly remember you saying that the two of you were a forever kind of deal or some bullshit. What'd he do?"

"Why would you assume that it's _him_?" I demanded hotly, dropping the morsel back onto the tray and leaning back in my seat. My other hand came up and ran itself through my hair, a nervous twitch that I had no control over.

About a second after the words left my mouth, I realized how damning they sounded. "Not that it's _me_, either, but-well, shit. Can we drop this and pretend I never said anything?"

"Sure, sure." A pause. "Why do you think my dad fired you?"

Well. I was going to have to tell him sooner or later.

"There's a chance I'm mentally unwell again-and not in the way I already am. In the hallucinating way. In the _I am seeing some weird shit_ kind of way."

Ichigo, ever the suave person, spit his french fries out before he could choke on them. Chunks of the potato-based food landed on my blouse and my face and the table in front of me. I wish I could have said that that was the _grossest_ thing to happen to me, but that would be a lie.

It only occured to me _then_ that Ichigo hadn't known me when Hideki had still be in residence. He had only known post-Hueco Mundo Kaori, the Kaori that had thought Grimmjow was dead and gone. The _me_ who had been adjusting to living without another entity within me, who had still been fighting to adjust after being abducted.

He had never had a chance to know the me who had struggled with mis-diagnosed schizophrenia, who had worried about medication not working and if the conversations I was having were real or not. If the people I was seeing were actually there, if I could remember _everything_ that had happened that day with no gaps in my knowledge.

It was going to suck _bad_ if I had to go back to all of that, minus Hideki. I thought that, if Hideki were there, _maybe_ it would be a little more bearable. But I wouldn't be alone through this, not really; I never had been. But the hallucinations had driven my father away, and I couldn't help but wonder who it would drive away this round.

"That . . . sucks," Ichigo said lamely after a few moments, like he thought he was supposed to say something but couldn't come up with anything better.

"Yeah," I said with a laugh, trying my best to push the thoughts away. It wouldn't do me any good thinking, especially on things like that. "But it's only a _chance_. Only time will tell if I really am regressing or not."

"So you told my dad?"

"_No_," I said, my fury at Urahara reigniting, a fire that hadn't needed stoked but had been anyway. "I believe Urahara told your dad, who figured I needed a couple of days. And Grimmjow knows, before you even ask that question, and _he_ thought I should take a couple of days but I didn't want to. But here we are, dining at this fine establishment."

Ichigo looked at me sceptically, like my word choice about McDonald's wasn't what _he_ would have picked, but didn't say anything.

"But my mom doesn't know, and I . . ." I took a deep breath; my hands had started to tremble again at some point, making it a little difficult to hide just _how_ freaked out I was about this whole thing. "I don't think I'm going to tell my mom until we're _sure_ that this isn't some kind of, I dunno, isolated incident."

"Good plan." He took a noisy gulp from his Coke, more air and ice than liquid left.

I nodded minutely, glad that someone else agreed with me for once.

* * *

><p>We didn't say much, after that. Just ate our food slowly, like neither of us could <em>really<em> come to eat any more of it but forced ourselves to anyway. And we were so focused on our food that we didn't notice something very important.

Or, more accurately, some_one_.

Yuna slid onto the bench beside me with such grace and precision and stealth that Ichigo got a face full of french fry, a hasty and unintentional payback for earlier. I proceeded to choke on my own spit because _oh my god, _where had she come from?

And how did she know where we were?

"Give a girl some warning next time," I croaked before downing half of my coke in an attempt to ease the sudden pain in my throat. Ichigo hadn't fared much better than I had-instead of expelling the food from his mouth, though, he looked like he had forcefully swallowed it.

I held out my almost empty Coke cup, and he took it and downed the rest of it in one quick gulp.

"What can we do for you?" I asked Yuna while Ichigo drowned in Cola in an effort to clear his windpipe. I was worried for a moment that he would drink _too_ fast and need medical attention.

She smiled at me, razor sharp and full of ulterior motives. "I just wanted to pop in and say hello; make sure you were getting on alright with Kurosaki." And then Ichigo jumped, like she had kicked him from under the table.

I hadn't been under the impression that Ichigo and Yuna would know each other, but I should have probably thought otherwise. Ichigo seemed to be acquainted with a great many Shinigami, even though he was just a substitute one himself.

"Yeah, but what are you doing _here_?" Ichigo rasped, setting the empty cup down on the table with a soft thud and the shifting of half melted ice.

"I'm on vacation," Yuna answered lightly with a wave of her hand. She leaned back in her seat on the bench, her other arm finding it's way across her stomach.

"I thought you didn't take vacations?" At that, the amused look on her face vaporized, only to be replaced by a look of embarrassment.

"I was, erm, persuaded otherwise."

"They changed the locks on your office?" Ichigo asked after a moment.

"They changed the locks on my office. _And_ Captain threatened me with, er. Uh. Well." She cleared her throat and purposely looked away from both of us. "There were threats."

"And then you broke his nose?"

"And then I broke his nose, _yes_," she said exasperatedly, hands forming fists on the table top. "So I kind of _had_ to take a vacation after th-wait. How do _you_ know I broke his nose?"

"Word gets around."

"Rukia," she seethed, smacking a fist on a table while simultaneously sneaking a french fry off of the tray.

"Yes and no. The video Renji shot was pretty great. Rukia's play by play retelling of it was not _as_ great. Or as accurate."

"There's a _video_?" Yuna demanded. I held my hand out for Ichigo's phone immediately, wiggling my fingers in his direction. I knew Renji, and I knew Rukia, and I had _heard_ bits and pieces about a man named Byakuya.

But I really wanted to see Yuna punch someone in the face.

"_Please_," I pleaded. "I _need_ to see this."

"Yes, Ichigo. Please." Yuna didn't sound quite as desperate as I did, but she held her hand out all the same, elbow on the table. But there was look on her face that I didn't have, one that I wasn't sure I could even be possible of, one that asked him to try otherwise and face the consequences.

Ichigo pulled out his phone.

* * *

><p>The video was <em>great<em>, but Ichigo insisted the he had to leave after that. Probably because he wasn't _supposed_ to show the video to any of the people it had been of, and didn't want to be around for the aftermath.

Yuna and I stayed at the table for a few more minutes, finishing off the rest of the fries. My hunger had come back, and part of me felt like she was devouring the salty potatoes out of _anger_. The video hadn't painted her in a good light.

Especially since it was apparently her _boss_ whose nose she had broken, and it hadn't been by punching him in the face.

She had slammed his head into the wall instead, in a move so fast that the camera hadn't picked it up. She had been standing there one minute, in a heated argument, and the next she had another man's arm behind his back, his head pushed face first into the wall.

Yuna, I had already figured, was not someone whose bad side I wanted to be on. The video simply reinforced that inkling of an idea.

We left the McDonald's only once all of the fries were gone, walking in a direction chosen at random. She was dressed in mostly the same fashion she was yesterday, rib-length leather jacket on her person over what looked to be a thin tank top. The left knee of her faded jeans was ripped out, and the toes of her lace up Chucks were scuffed and faded.

I _knew_ that the clothing choices of some Shinigami were questionable, but Yuna dressed like some American punk kid who wasn't quite ready to let go of the '90s. Sure, I tended to dress in pastels and florals, so I didn't have much room to talk.

Silence reigned for a number of blocks, neither of us feeling the need to broach it.

"Do you have any kind of combat experience, Kaori?" Yuna asked suddenly, lifting the dam. Her question took me completely off guard; what went on in that head of hers?

"Not really, no." I did _not_ count my mornings spent sparring with Grimmjow as 'combat experience,' and I likely never would. "Why do you ask?"

"I was curious, is all," she said with an easy roll of her shoulders. "Trying to figure out how you managed to get those scars on your knuckles."

When had she noticed _those_? I supposed it could have been at any point, really, but most people didn't _see_ them. And most didn't ask.

"I punched a wall." Actually, I had tried to punch _Hideki_ and had wound up punching a wall instead. I had nearly broken my hand in doing so, and shredded the skin open on my knuckles. They had taken _months_ to heal and when they had, scars were left that looked like someone had tried to take chunks from my flesh.

"What did the _wall_ do?" she asked with a laugh, tapping me lightly on the shoulder. I shook my head and laughed back.

I wasn't about to tell her that I punched the wall because the entity I had shared my body with tried to apologize.

"Would be interested?" she continued after a few moments, the only other sound between us the scraping of our shoes against the sidewalk. "In learning how to fight, I mean."

I opened my mouth, then promptly closed it. Grimmjow was teaching me, sure-but it was swordsmanship, and the chances of a katana or a shinai just lying around when I needed one. And I had seen what Yuna had done to her boss, how she had disabled and dominated a man who was larger than herself. And being able to do that would be helpful, should I have ever found myself in a situation that I needed to defend myself.

"I think . . . I think that would be a good idea."

* * *

><p>I didn't start making my way back to my apartment until well into the afternoon. Yuna and I had walked through the cold aimlessly, both of us chattering about everything and nothing at the same time. She was staving off returning to the Shoten, and I didn't want to go back to my empty apartment.<p>

It didn't occur to me until after we said our 'see you laters' that I could have just taken her _back_ to my apartment and dicked around there, but I have never been credited for being bright in the common sense area. That, and I was sure that the chores I had been putting off for much too long were beckoning.

And my course work, which I wasn't certain was ever going to get done. _Maybe_ I could get an extension on most of it, if I explained parts of my current situation to my professors. They would understand, hopefully.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. Which was normal. It was, after all, the middle of the afternoon. People _should_ be out and about and walking around. But it was a flickering thing, a pulsing shadow of black and grey that pulled at my attention and _nagged_ at the back of my mind.

I relented and look in the direction of the shadows, sure that it was just someone taking a shortcut through the alley, as was normal. Or maybe just someone passing by at the other end of the alley. Maybe it was a cat.

It was none of those things.

My stomach flipped at the sight of the apparition, bile rising up and clawing at the back of my throat. It was different than the one I had seen the other night, though no less stick-thin and pale. In the weak sunlight, it's skin was nearly transparent, it's lips a deep, deep black.

But where the other's had been oddly tall, this one was short. It had stubbly little bow legs, though it's arms were easily four times the length of it's body, trailing on the ground behind it.

Something looked like it was _moving_ under it's skin, bubbling up and threatening to rip out.

I gulped, then shoved my shaking hands into my pockets, turning away.

Then I kept on walking.

* * *

><p><em>an: the plot is there. somewhere. i promise you, it shows up in force in the next couple of chapters, then things really take off. i just have to write them first. _

_please leave some words in that box and send them off, yea? because, you know. i really do like hearing back from y'all?_


	7. band aids don't fix bullet holes

**seven: band aids don't fix bullet holes**

Grimmjow thought it was _great_ that Kurosaki-sensei had given me time off, even though I hadn't asked for it.

He did not, however, think it was great that Yuna had offered to teach me how to defend myself, or that I fully intended to take her up on that offer.

But he didn't argue.

I found out the hard way that Yuna excelled at hand to hand combat.

I mean, sure, I had seen a video of her smashing someone's head into a wall, but I hadn't actually put much thought into it.

And I had not been prepared to find myself on the floor of the Shoten with her knee in my back, one of her hands around my wrist wrenching my arm behind me, and her other hand braced against the side of my head.

I definitely had not been prepared to wind up in the same exact position eight times before that, either.

That was one of the things I learned about Yuna, though: when it was your turn to do the same move on her, she would walk you through it until she was on the ground with her arm behind her back and a knee in her spine.

And then she would flip you off and do the same to you at an impossible pace, every time, without fail. And she would keep doing it, too, until you got it right and she didn't have to walk you through it anymore, until she didn't have to correct your stance or give you small pointers.

But her methods were efficient and easy, and I felt like I grasped them much better than any of the sword shit Grimmjow was trying to get into my head. On top of that, Yuna was teaching me how to use my size to my own advantage, to base my power on my low center of gravity, to use my opponent's momentum against them.

I felt like I was learning quickly and as well as I could, all things considered. Things like the mountains of course work that were piling up and slowly becoming late, my extended vacation from work, and the fact that I was hallucinating at least once a day, and always when I was alone.

I had taken to ignoring those to the best of my ability, brushing past them with my head held high and my eyes fixed straight ahead of me.

Two weeks passed quickly. I went to the Shoten every day and spent an ungodly amount of time there, getting the snot beat out of me by Yuna, and trying to beat the snot out of her right back.

I failed every time, but it was still fun. It took my mind off of the fact that hallucinations had yet to stop and gave me something else to think about other than the way my life seemed to be crumbling around me, at least for a few hours out of the day.

Two weeks after we began, Yuna and i were sitting on the floor of the Shoten, having lunch.

Except, then she pulled a sheathed sword out of nowhere and nearly scared me half to death.

"Look at what I got for you!" she exclaimed happily, waving it around in the air. My hands turned into fists on my knees, knuckles white.

"What is it?" I knew what it was. It was a katana, and I already had an inkling that she wanted to teach me more than just what we had been doing.

She was a Shinigami, after all.

"It's an asauchi-a zanpakuto that hasn't been breached by spiritual pressure, basically," she explained, setting it on the floor in front of me. "I pulled a lot of strings to get it for you, especially since only graduates from the Academy can get their hands on them."

"Why do you want me to have it?"

She smiled at me, like she knew I wasn't going to understand. "I think it might be cathartic for you to bond with it. On top of that, you have more reiatsu than you think, Kaori."

I frowned at her, unsure whether what she said was a good thing or a bad thing. I probably would have been a little more sure one way or another if I knew what, exactly, it was that she meant.

Instead of saying anything, I reached forward and put my hand gently on the grip. I wasn't sure what it had been that I was expecting-a jolt, a shock, some kind of feeling that told me what I was doing was right; I got nothing. Just the feeling of the cold, stiff grip under my hand.

Glancing up, I noticed that Yuna was watching me closely. "On top of that," she said after a moment, "I think it might be good for you to learn how to use it to defend yourself, just in case."

My hand tightened around the hilt of the asauchi and I pulled it toward me before I could think about what I was doing. "Why?" Defend myself? Why would I need to defend myself, especially since I couldn't hardly tell what was real and what wasn't?

She rolled her shoulders, loosening her muscles and shaking out her hands. "You never know when you're going to be between a rock a hard place," she said. "C'mon; get up. Act like you might know what you're doing with that."

I stood up slowly, knees popping, asauchi clutched awkwardly in my hands. It was much heavier than the shinai I was used to using, and just a little longer.

"Keep the sheath on it, and don't worry about what I'm going to do; I can defend myself more than well enough." Yuna stood with her feet a little bit apart; from what I could tell, there was nothing about her stance that was different than when she was relaxed.

"C'mon, Kaori," she goaded, "take your stance. Attack when you're ready."

I recalled the video I had seen, the one of her smashing the man's face into a wall. She had been fast, precise, deadly. Even though she stood there completely relaxed, I knew she would be ready for how little I could dish out.

Which was why I didn't waste any time in charging at her haphazardly, feinting for her left side. She reacted instantly, bringing up an arm to block my blow; how strong were her bones? How was she so confident in her actions?

I switched directions immediately, driving the asauchi towards her right. I wasn't moving quite as fast as I was used to, given the unfamiliar weight of the weapon in my hands, how awkwardly it cut through the air.

Before I had a chance to react, Yuna had blocked it with her forearm, jarring my muscles with the force of the sudden lack of motion. She had moved faster than I did, honey colored eyes watching me intensely the entire time.

My shirt was already sticking to my back, and I wasn't sure if it was out of nervousness or the odd exertion I could feel weighing down on my limbs.

"I thought you _said_ that you didn't have combat experience?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

I smiled at her weakly. "I don't really count getting the crap beat out of me by Grimmjow as combat experience," I explained sheepishly. She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, though her arm didn't move the asauchi in my hands.

"It's better than nothing," she said sweetly.

And then she swept my legs out from beneath me, sending me crashing to my ass on the floor, asauchi clattering half on top of me, knocking me in the jaw.

I hadn't even seen her move, had seen nothing change in her demeanor that could have hinted at the fact that she was about to knock me to the ground. At least with Grimmjow I could _predict _what was coming next, even if I was slow to react.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the sword off of my jaw and sat up, fighting to get air back in my lungs. Yuna stood over me, the smile still on her face, though a little more mischievous than it had been before.

"Better than nothing." she repeated with a nod. "Let's do it again, shall we?"

* * *

><p>I returned to my apartment that night, asauchi clutched in my hands. It was too large to fit into my purse, and if <em>anyone<em> asked I was a cosplayer. That was my story, and I was going to stick to it to the end.

The apartment was warm, like normal, and quiet, also like normal. I knew Grimmjow was somewhere within, probably sleeping or something. He could have been on the internet, but I knew he liked his cat naps.

I hung everything up like I normally did, kicked off my shoes as usual. But I kept the asauchi in my hands, half scared to put it down. I had become rather attached to it in the few blocks to my apartment, attached to the idea that I could _possibly_ have a chance to manage what was happening to me.

A quick glance into the kitchen as I passed showed me that Grimmjow wasn't there. I kept walking lightly all the way to our bedroom, which was just as undecorated as the rest of the apartment.

The lack of decor had never really bothered me until Ichigo had pointed it out, and now I noticed it almost all the time.

In a matter of seconds, I found Grimmjow in our room, stretched out on the bed. He was lying on his back, phone in one hand.

"I'm home," I trilled loudly as I waltzed into the room, practically bouncing on my feet. Grimmjow's eyes flicked from the screen of his phone to me and back.

"You're home," he repeated, half as enthusiastic as I was. Which wasn't necessarily abnormal; I typically didn't come home in this good a mood.

But then he looked at me again, like he was just noticing the asauchi in my hands. A frown marred his features immediately.

"What the fuck is in your hands."

"An asauchi."

"Why do you have it."

"Uh, well. Those suppressors I was taking to keep Hideki at bay? They were repressing more than just him. They were repressing a good deal of my reiatsu, I guess?"

Grimmjow blinked at me, then blinked again. "I know? I mean, I felt the difference. And I thought you knew." I frowned, then set the asauchi down on the foot of the bed. Grimmjow glanced at the blade, then looked back at the screen on his phone. "Which was why I didn't mention it, so stop frowning at me."

My frown turned into a pout as I sat next to my new weapon, folding my legs up underneath me. "Maybe I like frowning at you."

"Yeah, because you're always frowning," he said sarcastically. My pout turned back into a frown as I flopped over his legs, chin smacking into the soft bed top. Some of the vertebrae in my spine popped with the action, and I was again reminded how Yuna had repeatedly tossed me to the ground repeatedly.

But I was learning faster than I expected to with her, and the bruises on my body felt like they agreed with me.

One of Grimmjow's hands found it's way to the small of my back, resting there as he did whatever it was he was doing on his phone. It was comforting, and was nearly asleep before he started talking again.

"That really didn't tell me why you have one of those as-whatevers, by the way." I huffed and pushed myself onto my forearms, looking at him over my shoulder.

"Yuna thought it was a good idea, and Urahara agreed." He looked at me for a few long moments, blue eyes boring into my own green ones.

"How do you know you can trust her?"

"You just don't like her because she's a shinigami," I told him flatly. He had pegged her as one immediately, long before I could even open my mouth to properly explain who Yuna was and where I had met her.

"So I might be more than a little fuckin' biased," he admitted. "But I mean, you seem to trust just about everyone you meet right off the bat."

I smiled at him easily. "Really? Because I can name a few people I didn't trust immediately and, oh, wait, your name is at the top of that list."

He shook his head and looked back at his phone. "You keep getting better at not answering questions, 'ori."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment? Because it didn't sound like one."

"Because it wasn't." I rolled my eyes and flopped back onto the bed, face pushing into the comforter. Hunger was gnawing at my stomach, like it had been since I left the Shoten; there were leftovers in the fridge I would reheat soon.

"Yuna acted like she believed me when I told Urahara about the hallucinations. She-she supported the idea of my, uhm, _relapse_ being a temporary thing."

"What if it's not?" I heard a light thump, hinting to me that he had finally put down his phone.

"What?" I asked sharply, bringing my head up and off of the blanket. I didn't bother with craning my neck to turn and look at him again; he already knew he had my attention.

"What if this isn't just some temporary thing, Kaori? What if it doesn't fuckin' go away?"

Something in me broke just then. It had been there, sure, fragile and cracked and glass and _waiting_.

I sat up immediately, almost tumbling off of the small expanse of bed available on the other side of Grimmjow.

"It is temporary," I hissed at him, hands curling into fists at my sides. My words were more for myself than were for him, though, trying to reassure myself that what was going on was far from permanent, that I could go back to my job and living my life like I had been for two years.

"But what if it _isn't_," he repeated, pushing himself so he sat upright just a little more. "It's been three weeks, Kaori. Don't you think it would have gone away by now if it wasn't fucking permanent?"

Fury was uncoiling itself in my gut, fiery and fierce and unignorable.

I got off of the bed and stood, hands shaking again at my sides. This time, it wasn't out of fear.

"It. Is. Not. Permanent," I ground out. I felt like I was going to hurl if I had to stand there another second, so I turned on the heels of my feet and stalked out of the room and toward the front door.

Behind me, Grimmjow scrambled out of bed to follow, his footsteps much harsher than mine in the empty apartment.

"How can you know that?" he demanded.

"How can _you_?" I snarled back acidly, picking up my pace a little as I moved toward the door. My blood was boiling in my veins, mind bogged down with fury. "You're not the one hallucinating, Grimmjow! You can't _possibly _know if it's permanent or not!"

I yanked my hoodie off of the hook I had placed it on just minutes before, tugging it onto my body with more force than was necessary.

"Where are you going?" My purse went onto my body, over my head and across my body in a jerky movement, and my feet slid into my pair of flats easily.

"Anywhere but here!" I shouted, wrenching open the door and stalking out of it.

He might have said something, but I slammed the door before I could listen.

I didn't look behind me as I left.

* * *

><p>Eventually, I wound up at my mother's, shivering under my too big hoodie and in my thin, damp flats. My phone had gone off a couple of times, but I had ignored it.<p>

That, of course, had been hours ago; my mother had let me in without a word. Just a smile and a knowing look and a pat on the top of my slowly-frizzing hair.

Mizuri had smiled and shook her head at me when she had come downstairs to find Mom and I sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea in silence. Neither of us had said a single word, and Mizuri seemed pretty intent on ruining that.

"What'd you fight about?" she asked, plopping into the seat across from me. I could practically hear Mom frowning at her, though she said nothing in my defense.

She wanted to know just as much as Mizuri did, though she had more tact.

"The finer points of bonsai care," I muttered sarcastically, rolling my eyes and taking a loud slurping drink from my tea cup. I had made up my mind when this had all started that I wasn't going to tell Mom about the fact that I was hallucinating again.

Not if I could help it, at least.

Mizuri rolled her eyes and poured herself a cup of tea. "Yeah, whatever," she said, unbelieving. "What did you_really_ fight about, Kaori-nee? Neither of you strike me as the kind to have a bonsai tree."

"Mizuri," Mom said in warning, lifting an eyebrow and fixing her gaze on my not-so-little sister.

All Mizuri did was frown, look back to me, and then busied herself with drinking her tea. I could feel her watching me, though, feel her eyes on me as she continued to try and puzzle out what Grimmjow and I had fought about.

Nosy little brat.

"Can I spend the night?" I asked after a few minutes, gently breaking the tense silence that had descended with Mizuri in the kitchen.

"You don't have to ask," Mom said with a smile. "You know that, Kaori. You're always welcome here."

"Thanks." I looked back into my half empty tea cup, dully recalling that the last time I had stormed off from him after an argument, it had been because he had kissed me. We had been in Las Noches then, and he had avoided me for weeks even though we had shared a living space.

It had taken me punching a wall and earning the scars on my knuckles for us to reconcile.

I didn't think that was going to happen, this time around.

* * *

><p>I wound up sleeping on the couch, Mizuri's feet in my face since she didn't seem to want to leave me alone. Her head was at the opposite end of the piece of furniture, my own feet in her face.<p>

I couldn't find it in myself to go to sleep. My mind kept turning over the words Grimmjow had said to me, and everything I had said back. On top of that, my mind had decided that it was a great time to over analyze everything Yuna had said or done.

My mind just wouldn't be quiet, wouldn't let me rest.

I snarled and did the only thing I could think of doing at one AM: pulled my phone out from under my pillow with the intent of reading _anything_ to try and lull myself into sleep.

There were only two missed calls and one text message. No voice mails, no 'call me, Kaori's.'

Just:

_Whatever she gets you into, be careful._

I snorted, locked my phone, and shoved it back under my pillow.

I showed up a few minutes later to the Shoten than I normally did, asauchi in my hands. I had waltzed into my apartment just minutes after Grimmjow had left it, glad to have timed my arrival perfectly.

I didn't want to face him, not for a while yet.

* * *

><p>Yuna was waiting where she typically did, sitting on the ground with her legs tucked up underneath her, eyes closed. Which was a little weird, because she was normally pacing the floor or standing on her head when I got there.<p>

Added to the fact that she had something clutched in her hands, I knew something was just a little off.

I folded myself to the ground across from her, gently adjusting the asauchi so it was in my lap instead of on the ground next to me, and cleared my throat.

Yuna's eyes snapped open immediately, her attention focused on me. A slow smile unwound itself across her face. "You're a little later than usual," she said cheerfully.

"Yeah. Well. Came from my mom's." Kind of, sort of, but the less people who knew I had fought with Grimmjow, the better. It was likely I would never hear the end of it, especially if Ichigo caught wind.

I finally realized that what Yuna held in her hands was a knife in it's sheath, only about seven inches long. The guard was incredibly small, hardly enough to protect her hand. Everything about it was nondescript, black and simple and unnoteworthy.

She noticed that I was looking at the weapon after a moment.

"This is my zanpakuto," she stated simply.

"That looks more like a letter opener." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Yuna smiled thinly at me. "Thanks," she said dryly. Something told me that that hadn't been the first time she had heard that precise word choice, especially when it came to her zanpakuto. "We're going to be doing something a little different today."

"So I'm not going to go home with more bruises than I came in with?" I asked cheekily, earning a laugh from Yuna.

"Not today, no. We're just going to relax today. Well, kind of relax. Meditate would be the right word."

My blank stare must have asked all of the questions that didn't come to my mind.

Yuna laughed again and lifted her zanpakuto with one hand. "This started out looking like your asauchi," she explained. "They change over time, after exposure to your reitsu. It is, in essence, an extension of yourself."

"Okay." I waited for further instruction, staring at her blankly. She had given me the bare minimum of information, and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with it.

She stared at me.

"Uh." Pause. "What exactly is it that I'm supposed to do?"

The corners of the Shinigami's mouth curled up in a smile. "Close your eyes. Focus on the asauchi. Try to make a connection with it."

"Vague much?"

She shook her head, closed her eyes. Didn't answer me. I frowned, looked down at the asauchi in my lap, and closed my eyes.

Except.

I could't bring myself to focus on the asauchi in my hands, to throw everything I had into the action and empty my mind. The argument I had gotten into last night was still popping back into my head-_how do you know, how do you know, how do you know, how do you _trust-distracting me from getting anything of note done.

With a quiet exhale, I opened my eyes. Yuna's were still closed, her posture stiff and regal, her jaw clenched. Her fingers were curled lightly around her letter opener, and it was difficult to tell if she was breathing or not.

And then I made up my mind.

"Why are you doing this for me?" I finally asked, finding the courage to voice the thoughts that had been buzzing about in my mind since Grimmjow had raised doubts.

"Doing what?" she asked, opening her eyes. They were unusually bright, hyper-focused on me.

"_This_," I said with a little more force, waving a hand in the air. "Helping me, giving me this asauchi, _teaching_ me. Why are you doing it?"

She smiled at me, a different smile than she had used before. There was no edge to it, all of the usual sharpness gone. It was softer than it had ever been, more sad than easy going. "I have my reasons," she said. "Reasons that I am not comfortable with sharing, not just yet."

I felt jumpy and uneasy, even more so given her answer. What reasons would she have for not telling me? And why would those reasons make her uncomfortable? Like, I totally got that sometimes giving answers made you uncomfortable, but when people were suspicious, wasn't it better to give the answers than let the suspicion linger?

Studying her critically, I decided that whatever those reasons were, they would make themselves apparent soon enough.

"Now hush up and focus, Kaori. It'll take more than just once trying to connect with the asauchi for it to work; keep that in mind. Don't get disheartened. Just focus."

_Focus._

* * *

><p><em>an: and there we have it! next update likely won't be until sunday, because i'm leaving tomorrow on a road trip. headed down to california for a couple of days before coming back home. also, my computer inexplicably took a dump and now won't work. which is why i wrote all of this on my phone. whoops._

_thank you all so much for your reviews! they really mean a lot to me, and they really help me get going when it comes to writing. _

_please leave a couple of more?_


	8. the rest of the world

**eight. the rest of the world was black and white**

A week passed.

I still had no luck connecting with the asauchi, though Yuna told me not to worry about that. It took some people decades to connect with their asauchi; some Shinigami even died before getting that far.

Not exactly a comforting thought.

I had all of the luck in the world, though, when it came to studiously avoiding Grimmjow. If I wasn't at the Shoten, I was at my mother's. I had picked up some clothes from the apartment and some of my coursework from Grimmjow had been working, just so I wouldn't have to go back there everyday.

I was sure that he noticed, but he had only called me once since then (which I did not answer) and texted me twice (neither of which I responded to).

He wasn't forcing the issue that I wasn't home, wasn't bringing up the fight in any of the text messages he sent, didn't leave any voice mails. He was giving me the space I felt I needed, though probably more than I should have been allowed.

Mom and Mizuri both had yet to discern the reason for my sudden presence on the couch nightly, but neither of them had successfully weaseled it out of me. Nor did they know that I wasn't currently working, but contributed to their groceries anyway.

Otherwise, everything seemed almost normal.

And by 'normal', I meant Yuna was still handing me my butt on a platter daily with more finess and ease than I had thought possible.

Which was why I was on my back in the Urahara Shoten, sheathed asauchi in hand. Yuna's knees were on either side of me, her letter opener of a zanpakuto baring down on my asauchi. My arms were shaking from the amount of pressure she was exerting, and how much strength it was taking me to keep our blades less than an inch above my neck.

"C'mon, Kaori," she goaded. She hadn't even broken a sweat yet. "You can do this."

'This', of course, was manage to get my asauchi somewhere near her neck. I felt like I had been getting better at wielding the weapon, though I lacked the stamina to truly keep up with her. But it was the ridiculous situations she forced me into, like then, that made me question just how well I was really progressing.

"Trying," I grunted, gathering a bit of strength in my muscles and pushing up against her. She let up a couple of centimeters, but was otherwise unchanged.

And then my arms gave out; my asauchi clattered onto my chest, and Yuna fell forward a little before she caught herself. She smiled at me brightly as she stood, sticking her zanpakuto in the waistband at her back and holding a hand out to me.

"You lasted a litter longer that time," she praised. "And you kept up wonderfully. Much better than you did when we first started."

I took her hand, grabbing the hilt of my asauchi with the other one as she pulled me up. I was panting; my shirt stuck to my back like a second skin, and I could feel the sweat dripping down my neck. Some of my hair had fallen out of my bun during our match, falling in clumps in my face.

I wobbled on my feet a little as she let go of my hand, patting me on the shoulder. "I think that's about enough for the day, don't you?"

"Uh, yeah." Water. I wanted water. And a shower. And ice, because my back was killing me from where I had landed on it a handful of times earlier. My breathing was still more than a little ragged, but I knew it would even itself out before too long.

I was never this tired after sparring with Grimmjow.

Shaking out my limbs, I stretched and scooped my rain coat up off the floor, tugging it on over my sweat drenched clothes.

"Same time tomorrow?" I asked, zipping my coat up to my chin and gathering my asauchi up in my hand again.

Yuna winced a little. "Not quite," she said, her smile coming back full force.

"Why not?"

"All good things must come to an end, Kaori," Yuna said easily. "But I finally get to go back to work!"

It sounded like I wasn't the only workaholic in the room.

"And planning your wedding!" Yoruichi called as she passed the room, shooting Yuna a toothy smile. The Shinigami made a strangled sound in the back of her throat and Yoruichi disappeared just as quickly as she had come.

I hadn't known she had even been in the Shoten, to be honest.

"You can shut up anytime!" Yuna called after her. I was a little taken aback at first, since I hadn't thought much about Yuna's personal relationships; she never really talked much about herself. But I did recall the night she had walked me home, how she had mentioned something about a fiance in passing.

All she got in response was a muffled cackle; Yuna shook her head and looked back to me, smiling. "She refuses to stop dangling that in my face," she said by way of explanation, dragging a hand down her chin.

I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Yuna was leaving so abruptly. "So you're going back to the Soul Society tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Yuna said cheerfully, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "Back to the monotony of paperwork and making tea!"

She sounded much, much more excited than she probably should have when speaking about paperwork. Of course, she had broken her boss's nose and was forced to take a vacation, so I supposed she must have liked her job. To each their own, I guess.

"I mean, for a bit at least. I'll probably be coming back to Karakura off and on after I get back for work related issues," she continued on, nodding as I scooped my purse up and off of the floor. We never really mingled after she was done beating the snot out of me; probably because I was always so tired and wasn't much for conversation after that.

Neither of us said anything as she followed me to the side door of the Shoten. I opened it and stepped into the cold night air, pulling the hood of my rain coat up over my head. It was pouring down rain, the droplets hitting the concrete with more force than should have been allowed.

"Are you ever going to tell me why you've done all of this for me?" I asked, turning to face her. She tugged on her lip with her thumb and forefinger, eyeing me critically from the doorway.

Finally, she spoke.

"The next time I see you, Kaori. I promise."

* * *

><p>My phone was ringing.<p>

Which wasn't unusual, since it was Grimmjow.

But what was unusual was the fact that it was one o'clock in the morning. In the entirety of the time since our argument, he had called at hours that he knew I would be awake at, knew he had a chance of me picking it up.

Unless he had resorted to other tactics, like knowing I rarely checked my phone to see who it was that was calling me in my sleep.

Not that I thought he would do something like that, especially with how he had been giving me space.

Groggily, I decided that one AM was about as good of a time as any to talk to him.

"Hello?" I mumbled, rolling onto my side.

"Fucking _finally_," he shouted into the phone. There was a weird undercurrent in his voice, the relief of having someone finally answer. But there was more to it than that, something else there that I knew very well.

Panic.

But I was still too groggy to fully understand that what I was hearing was panic.

"Grimmjow, what-"

"Karin is bleeding out on our floor, and I don't know what to do, and I know you're mad at _me_, but-"

My mind was still fogged up with sleep; I couldn't process all of what he was saying, not with him speaking so quickly and shouting.

"Please calm down and enunciate," I interrupted, dashing a hand over my eyes as I sat up with a yawn.

A frustrated snarl ripped through the photo line, making me flinch. "Karin is bleeding out on the floor and you want me to _enunciate_!"

That was about the time that I managed to process just what it was he was saying.

I was up and off of the couch in a matter of seconds, legs tangled up in my blanket. I was more than just a little grateful that Mizuri had gone back to her own room just a few nights prior, deciding she was tired of sleeping with my feet in her face.

"Calm down and take some deep breaths," I ordered immediately, very much awake. I tore the blanket off from around my legs and tossed it onto the couch, not looking back to make sure it actually landed there as I made my way to the door. "Have you staunched the bleeding?"

My hoodie found it's way onto my body. "I am trying!"

Flats went onto my feet; I was vaguely aware that it had been raining earlier, and puddles were sure to be found, but cold feet was better than a dead Kurosaki.

"Just-just stay calm," I said as soothingly as I could, yanking my purse off of the hook and scooping the asuachi up with the same hand. I was out the door before I continued talking, hastily locking it behind me. "I'm on way, okay? Put me on speaker, then keep staunching the blood flow, alright?"

It was still drizzling outside as I fought with my purse to get it over my head and shoulder, simultaneously trying to keep my phone in one hand and not knock myself in the head with the asauchi. Once my purse was on as well as it was going to get, I broke into a run, well aware of every pool of water my foot went into.

The first time I had helped someone who was bleeding to death, it had been Grimmjow. It had been the middle of the night then, too, and _he_ had been the one telling me what to do and how to do it. He hadn't been panicking, then, even though he was missing an arm and bleeding all over the place.

If he was panicking now, I would hate to see what kind of shape Karin was in.

I stayed on the phone with him, doing my best to try and keep him calm while keeping my voice as soothing as I could while I ran. Water from the puddles I couldn't avoid soon soaked my shoes; the drizzle had soaked my hoodie and my hair quickly.

I didn't feel the cold air biting at my bare legs; I hadn't had the time to put pants on before dashing out of Mom's house, so I was running around in light pink sleep shorts covered in bunnies.

It would have been funny, if someone wasn't injured and I was running helter skelter for a different reason.

I rounded a corner and stumbled a few steps as my eyes registered the form that was standing at the other end of the block, just under the street light. It was exactly what I had been hoping not to see; what Urahara and others kept telling me was a hallucination.

It was the first one I had seen, the first apparition other than the shadow that had started this whole mess.

I had forgotten just how terrifying this one was, bent double and ghost-white. It's lips were still red and ragged, teeth still looking just a little too big for it's mouth.

My knuckles turned white around the grip of the asauchi in my hand as I advanced toward it, drawing closer and closer with each elongated step. It didn't move out from beneath the light; it stood there, watching me approach, head titled to the side.

There was blood on the creature's face, wet and shiny and new. Blood on it's hands, on it's arms, on it's torso. On it's too big, too many teeth. It's face was stretched in a smile that made my insides run cold.

I clenched my jaw and kept running straight toward the hallucination. It's black hole eyes were boring into me, the blood on it silvery and bright in the dim light and drizzle.

At the last possible second I veered to the right, exposing my left side, trying to avoid coming into contact with the thing. I could see it reaching out for me in my peripheral vision, but refrained from flinching away. I didn't look at it as I passed, didn't look over my shoulder to see behind me.

I just kept running.

* * *

><p>Karin was a mess.<p>

Her clothes were tattered, her skin bloody. There were gaping wounds in her abdomen, on her arms, her face, her legs. Ragged tears that rented her flesh apart, bruises already half formed beneath the caked on blood.

I dropped to my knees beside her immediately, tossing my phone at Grimmjow by way of greeting. I hadn't even looked at him. "Call Tessai. Tell him what's going on." My hands were already probing some of Karin's wounds, trying to see just how bad some of them really were. "I can't do much to help her, now. He needs to come."

Her pulse was a slight flutter under my fingers, her breathing shallow and strained as she fought to take each breath.

It seemed like years passed before Tessai got there and got to work. I had done what I could, staunching and trying to stop the bleeding of most of her major wounds, cleaning them as I went. I hadn't noticed Grimmjow get up to let Tessai in, hadn't noticed the two men come into the room.

I was frustrated before too long as I watched Tessai get to work, patching up Karin and making it look almost like she hadn't been attacked in the first place. I couldn't do anything to help her, not like I had before, and I should have been there when she had arrived in her tattered state.

I was sure that if I had been there, sleeping in the apartment, her condition wouldn't have been so precarious. She would have gotten care faster and, as it was, Tessai would have arrived sooner. Instead I had had to run almost fourteen blocks and up a flight of stairs before seeing to Karin and getting Tessai called.

In the state she was in, she was lucky she was still alive when Tessai had arrived. I had, of course, assumed Grimmjow might have been exaggerating a little about her wounds.

And I had been wrong.

Before long, I found myself sitting in the corner of my room, hair quickly frizzing from the rain I had been subject to, the sleeves of my hoodie pushed up past my elbows and still damp; my hands were curled in my lap, eyes trained unseeing on Tessai and Karin.

Grimmjow, I had realized a bit ago, was seated beside me, just as quiet and dazed as I was. His arms and torso were bloody as well, which was to be expected from the way his night had apparently gone.

But it was weird, seeing his bare chest covered in dried blood again. I hadn't been subject to that sight for over three years, and it was jarring to see it again.

And then he noticed me staring and tried to smile, so I promptly looked away.

I wasn't sure how long it took, in the end. All I know was that I wasn't needed anymore, and it gave my mind time to shut down and restart, time to realize just how little sleep I was going to get that night.

Tesssai assured me Karin would make a full recovery and feel some muscle soreness when she woke, but that would be all. He then enlisted Grimmjow's help to move the teen girl from the floor she was bleeding on and onto our bed.

I knew I would have to call Kurosaki-sensei at some point to come up with a half viable story about why Karin wasn't in her bed come morning, but that would be easy enough once I got some sleep.

"Thank you so much, Tessai," I said once Karin was safely tucked into my bed. The massive man turned to me, nodding his head.

"What about the cuts on your face, Kaori?"

I frowned. "What cuts?" There were no cuts on my face; I hadn't done anything to get any sort of cuts on my face.

Grimmjow scooped my phone from up off of the floor and handed it to me, already in selfie mode. I frowned at him, noting a slight pulling feeling in the back of my mind as I did so.

My stomach turned over as I saw what was in the front facing camera. My dark brown hair was in a knot on the top of my head, much like it had been when I had gone to sleep that night. However, there _were _cuts on my face.

Three of them, equally spaced apart. They were on my left cheek, just above my jaw. Sharp and thin and long, stretching back into my hairline and starting near the corner of my mouth. Blood was smeared around them, some of it caked on jaw and flaky. But what really made me look closer was the fact that some of the dried blood was smeared.

Smeared in the shape of a hand print.

I felt like I was going to puke. Where had those come from?

"Oh." It was the only sound I could make, distant and faint to my own ears. My phone slipped out of my hand and into my lap.

"Kaori, did you black out?" Grimmjow asked carefully. I pursed my lips, panic welling up inside of me. Had I blacked out? I remembered everything from waking up on the couch to getting here; there was no way I could have blacked out.

"I don't think so," I said quietly; I didn't like the implications of the cuts on my face, or the bloody handprint that accompanied them. I should have remembered something like that happening, been aware that something was going to scratch me and cup my face.

The last time I had blacked out, it had been in Las Noches. I had blacked out twice, then, both times because Hideki had taken it upon himself to make my life a living hell at that point. The first time, I had woken up covered in blood because Grimmjow had punched me in the face.

The second time, the bruises hadn't been quite so quick to fade, but there hadn't been blood involved. Usagi had taken the easy route and kneed me in the stomach.

I had a gap in my memory both times I had blacked out. This time, there was none of that, no black hole despite the marks on my body to indicate otherwise.

There was another possiblity, of course, but it wasn't like I was about to voice it in front of Grimmjow, who wouldn't believe me, and Tessai, who I didn't think knew what was going on with me.

I looked Tessai dead in the eye. "Please heal them," I told him quietly, hands curling into fists in my lap.

I didn't want to see them, since they reminded me of what was going on.

"You heal remarkably slow, Kaori," he said after a few minutes. He was still at his work; I couldn't feel much going on on that side of my face, save for a pulling sensation every now and then. "Almost like your body is resisting my efforts."

My thoughts went to the scars on my knuckles, of how long it had taken to heal the chewed up flesh after I had done it. And then I thought about all of the different bruises I had sustained over time, how they would stay on my skin for weeks longer than they should have.

Of course, all of them had one thing in common:

They had all been caused by something with reiatsu.

* * *

><p>Grimmjow cornered me in the kitchen not long after Tessai left, two cups of tea in his hands. He set one down on the table in front of me before taking the seat across from me.<p>

Belatedly, I noticed that he had cleaned the kitchen while I had been away. All of the pizza boxes were gone, and all of the various sheets of paper I had printed out for my thesis paper were stacked at the other end of the table. It looked like they had been sorted through and separated.

"Thanks," I mumbled, turning my eyes down onto my tea. Steam was rolling up and out of the cup, and it warmed my hands as I wrapped them around the container.

We sat in a tense, strained silence for what seemed like hours, the only noise between us the ticking of the clock that hung on the kitchen wall and our steady breathing.

My muscles were sore and burning from how far I had run in such a short time, especially without stretching beforehand. I hadn't noticed it before, especially since I had been so pumped up and panicky then, adrenaline rushing through my system.

The urge to sleep hit me like a ton of bricks, body and mind still tired from my lengthy training session with Yuna.

Fighting off a yawn, I finally broke the silence.

"I'm going to sleep on the futon in the room, in case Karin wakes up. Will you-"

"Sleep on the couch? Yeah." I nodded at him, biting down on my lower lip and looking back at the table top.

"Hey, Kaori? I-"

I stood up swiftly, nearly knocking my chair over backward in the process. I was not ready to talk to him about anything, not after the events of the last few hours.

"I can't do this right now. Not tonight," I stated abruptly, turning on my heels and fleeing to the bedroom.

I heard Grimmjow sigh and smack the tabletop quietly as I left.

* * *

><p>I woke, coming to and sitting up in the same breath. My legs slid off of the couch; my purple sneakered feet hit the ground with a thud, right next to my red plaid messenger bag.<p>

Weak moonlight drifted through the high barred window in the wall, lighting up a small patch on the dark floor. The white walls were a dingy gray in the dark, the same as the white clothes on my body-a pair of white shorts that were half familiar to me, and a white three quarter sleeved shirt. The hood from said shirt was twisted around my neck, my clumpy frizzy bleached blond hair falling in knots to my elbows.

With a huff, I stood up and stretched, rolling my neck and wincing when I felt my skin pulling at the bruises that were still there. Were they ever going to go away?

"Finally awake, huh?" I jumped, startled to see a man leaning against the wall whom I hadn't seen at first.

He was dressed as a Shinigami, massive scarred arms crossed over his barrel sized chest. His silvery hair was slicked back and hanging down to his elbows, some of the strands coated in dried blood. A knowing smirk graced his features.

I knew who it was immediately.

"Hideki?" I asked, titling my head to the side. He grinned, skin pulling at the corners of his pupiless eyes.

"Got it in one, Ka-chan. You're normally much slower." I frowned; much slower my ass. When I was running, maybe, but wits? I could figure out a few things more than easily enough.

But then the skin on his face started to crack and fall to the ground, coming off in layers. A scream ripped it's way out of my mouth; I jumped away from Hideki in a rush, and my shoulders bumped into something.

I screamed again as hands clamped down on my shoulders, fingers digging into my muscles until I could feel them in my bones.

"What're you so jumpy for, Ka-chan?" I looked up, tears stinging at my eyes as I realized that Hideki was behind me, his hands on my shoulders.

His eyes were bleeding.

"What happened to the girl I used to know? The loud one that didn't do as she was told? I don't see her anymore."

I ripped myself out from beneath his hands, twisting on my feet to turn and face him. My whole body felt like it was shaking, trembling, rolling with a force that I hadn't known was possible.

"What do you want from me?" I snarled.

Hideki grinned; as I watched, his teeth looked like they were growing in size, becoming too large for his mouth and shredding his lips. His eyes, or what was left of them, were pitch black.

And then he punched me in the face.

* * *

><p>I awoke again abruptly, breathing haggard as my eyes fought to adjust to the dim light of the bed room.<p>

A dream.

It had been a dream. Hopefully? I wasn't sure. Nothing felt _solid_ anymore. It was like everything in my life was shifting and changing, and I hadn't noticed it until it was too late to change anything.

And Hideki. _Hideki. _He had been like that once, I knew, before we had come to terms with each other. Before he had been banished from my mind, we had been thick as thieves. He had been the only one who really understood what it was that I had been through, the only one who knew what it was that I was missing when I had come back from Hueco Mundo.

To see him again, even in a dream state when I had spent so long without dreaming at all, was more than little weird. And the way he had acted, even though I knew it was all in my head, was terrifying.

Before I could put much thought into anything, I found myself crawling out from beneath my blanket and off of the futon, standing and heading out of the bedroom.

I padded into the living room quietly, arms wrapped around my middle. My hands were shaking again; I could feel them against my sides.

Grimmjow was sound asleep on his back on the couch, an arm thrown up over his face. My dream was still vivid in my mind, Hideki showing up on the corners of my vision and in every shadow in the living room. The sneer on his face, the way his skin had come off in layers.

His fist, my face.

I inhaled sharply at that point, unsteady fingers digging into my rib cage and squeezing harshly.

"Kaori?" Grimmjow asked sleepily, pushing himself upright on the couch. I backed up into the door frame, startled, because I had been sure he had been asleep. "What're you doin'?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. The word came out as a croaking noise, and I realized too late that it made it sound like there was something wrong, and I was doing something.

"C'mere," he grunted. And though I had done my best to avoid him for a week, I found myself crossing the living room in a few quick steps and collapsing onto the couch next to him. His arms were around me immediately, pulling me close and tugging the blanket up over our shoulders.

I found myself with my face pressed into his bare shoulder, because who needs shirts? One of his hands was working it's way through my hair slowly but surely pulling the elastic out of it that was keeping it in what was left of my bun.

My hands were trapped between our bodies, pushed up into my chest; Grimmjow's other arm was around my waist, partly to keep me close and partly to keep me from falling off of the couch.

The thing about our couch was that it was really only big enough for one person to lie on at once. Even getting a small person and a child to lie on it was pushing it. So with two full grown adults, it was no wonder my ass was sticking off of the couch.

"I'm still mad at you," I mumbled into his shoulder. He sighed, his hand running through my hair again.

"Yeah, I know."

* * *

><p><em>an: back from the road trip! probably would have updated sooner, but I only got home like twenty minutes ago. SO! managed to get (part of) another chapter done (which will be nine). should be up friday? maybe thursday? and then i heard you guys like intermissions :D_

_thank you all so much for your feedback on all of this! it really means a lot to me!_


	9. all we want is danger

**nine. all we want is danger**

Karin came to mid-morning, long after I had woken up on the couch alone and covered with more blankets than Grimmjow and I had fallen asleep with. He hadn't been there when I had woken up, somehow managing to extract himself from the couch, get ready for work, and leave without disturbing me.

Which wasn't too surprising, after the night I had had.

After I had woken, I had made hurried calls to Kurosaki-sensei to tell him why Karin wasn't in her bed that morning. I had called it an 'existential crisis of the teenage sort' and left it at that. Neither he nor Ichigo knew of her nightly escapades, and I was more than sure that she wanted to keep it that way.

The next call I had made had been to my mother, who had no doubt missed me on the couch that morning and shook her head at the mess I had left. An explanation for her was a little harder to come up with, especially if I wanted it to be viable and, for the most part, believed.

Which was why I told her that Kurosaki Karin had been having a teenage crisis and needed me before she did something truly stupid. Easy enough to be believed, especially since Mom didn't personally know Karin, and it resembled both the truth and the lie I had fed to Kurosaki-sensei well enough that, with luck, I wouldn't be forgetting it any time soon.

Karin, of course, was a little confused as to how she had wound up in my bed, or even where she was for a few moments after coming out of the fog.

In fact, had I not been sitting on the end of my bed and trying to catch up on my mountains of coursework I had missed up to that point, I doubt she would have figured out where she was so quickly.

The only indicator that I had to the fact that she was awake as her actively trying to sit up and hissing in pain. While Tessai had managed to close all of the wounds, I knew they were probably more than a little sore yet.

My own face was still sore, but the pain was bearable.

"Careful, Karin. Tessai patched you up pretty good, but you'll still be sore for a bit." She jumped a little, almost like she hadn't been aware that I had been in the room, let alone that close to where she was lying.

She groaned in response, resting her head back on the pillows and rubbing at her eyes.

"Kaori?" she asked sleepily, voice scratchy. I could think of numeral causes for it.

Like screaming, for instance.

"Water's on the nightstand, along with some ibuprofen. Hungry?" I myself had woken up ravenous, and I wasn't sure if it was because ha of how much energy I had expended through the night or from Tessai fixing my face.

Of course, I had expected to find absolutely no food in the apartment. Imagine my surprise when I had found out the cupboards mostly stocked with food-more food than had been in them when I had left.

I had choked on my spit upon realizing that Grimmjow had gone grocery shopping.

She mumbled something I couldn't quite catch, flopping an arm over her face. Deciding that she was going to be fine, I tried to turn my attention back to my text book. It didn't go any better than it had been before, the letters swimming on the page and nearly indecipherable.

"Why weren't you here?" Karin's voice cut through what little concentration I had had to begin with, giving me a prime reason to give up on my course work entirely. Snapping my text book shut loudly, I tossed it away from me before turning all of my attention to Karin.

I smiled at her sheepishly and ducked my head. "Grimmjow and I, uh, got into a fight. So I've been staying at my mom's." Karin was the first person outside of those involved that I had told this to. It felt liberating, almost, to be able to tell a neutral party.

"But you guys don't fight? Ever?" She still sounded just a little groggy, but she hadn't tried to sit up again.

There was truth to her words, though-in the year or so she had known Grimmjow and I as an entity, we had had arguments. Small squabbles, things easily solved with a coin toss or a quick Google search.

Never anything that lasted more than an hour, though; never anything that wasn't easily remedied. Not since Los Noches, at least.

"Well we did, and it's done, and we're not. Speaking." Not doing anything, really, save for him trying to address the issue and me doing my best to avoid it. "I'm sorry, Karin. I should have been here."

"'m alive, aren't I?" she asked. My hands had tightened on my knees, the muscles in my jaw clenching.

That wasn't a conversation that I wanted to have, not at that moment. I should have been there, should have been _in my own bed_ instead of on my mother's couch.

"What was it that got you?" I finally asked, trying to broach the subject as gently as I could. I knew that she might not even remember what had attacked her, but it was worth a shot.

Karin's already pale skin blanched completely, lips pressing into a thin white line.

"It-It was tall. And it wasn't like anything I had seen before, not since I've started dealing with hollows. I don't think it was even close to a hollow, but it was dressed in white like the Arrancar." Like Grimmjow, once.

My heart felt like it was slowing in my chest.

"And it was doubled over-it was taller than I was, even like that. And it's _face, _Kaori. All stark white and big teeth and torn lips."

There was an inkling of an idea forming in the back off my head, something I would have to sit on and stew over. But if what she was describing what I thought she was, then hopefully most of my problems would be solved sooner rather than later.

"Hey," I interrupted softly, setting a hand down on the blanket that covered the ankle closest to me. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't feel ready."

"But I couldn't do anything about it, Kaori," she said quietly, descriptions she was giving forgotten. "It-it attacked, and then I somehow got away, and I came here."

"It's okay," I said reassuringly.

Whatever it was, she hadn't killed it. It was still out there.

Waiting.

* * *

><p>I walked Karin home later that afternoon, if only to ease my own worry about whatever had attacked her coming back to finish the job.<p>

I had also told her the cover story I had come up with and told her father, for which she glared at me. And then her glare only got worse when we reached her home and Kurosaki-sensei had scooped Karin into a bear hug for a long moment before pulling me into it and sobbing to the giant poster of Masaki on the wall.

Which was weirdly surreal, since it was the first time I had seen it happen for myself. I mean, sure, I had heard about it being a common occurrence, but to see it happen took it to a whole new level of odd.

I had made a decision standing on the steps of the Kurosaki household, one that I hadn't been sure about until I was already more than halfway back to the apartment with all of my clothes from Mom's.

I didn't want a repeat of what had happened with Karin the night before-I wanted to be at my apartment at night, when I could be, so that I could help her and whoever happened to stumble over the threshold. I didn't want to feel useless when it came to those situations again.

Nor did I want to run through the streets in my pajamas, but that was a different story.

I put my clothes away when I returned to the apartment, straightened up what I had neglected that morning, then sat down at the kitchen table.

It was only a few minutes of a wait before Grimmjow came back into the apartment. I had timed my arrival just right, apparently-he was like clockwork, adjusted to a routine that I had pinned down months ago. I heard his shoes hit the wall, the sound of cloth shifting as he hung up his coat; the snick of the deadbolt as he moved it into place.

And then he wandered into the kitchen after a few seconds, paying absolutely zero attention to his surroundings. His keys landed on top of the table in front of me, his eyes already focused on the quietly humming fridge that also occupied the room.

I opted not to say anything, watching him idly as he rummaged around in the fridge and appreciating the stretch of his hip bones and stomach I could see from the way his shirt rode up. But really, with a physique like _his_, who would even need a shirt?

I kept my hands folded on the tabletop in front of me, small smirk on my face as he pulled out of the fridge with a bottle of water, taking a massive swig out of it as he turned.

And then his back slammed into the counter, water coming out of his mouth as he caught sight of me sitting at the table. A choking sound came out of his throat as he dashed a hand across his mouth, eyes wide.

I cackled; in all honesty, I had not been prepared for him to be that taken aback by my presence at the table.

"You're still here?" Grimmjow asked as he straightened, surprised. He had expected me to be gone again, for our temporary truce to be over and done with until I felt ready to talk.

"Yeah." And then I cleared my throat, because the word had come out quietly and more like 'eh'. "Yes," I assured a little louder, fingers twisting together nervously. I could feel my bones rubbing together through my skin, feel my knuckles popping with each movement. "I mean, you know, I did _leave_ earlier to walk Karin home. But I decided to come back."

"To do what? Scare the shit out of me? Ogle my ass from a corner?" I bit back a laugh.

"No."

"Oh, so you came to _apologize_?" For a split second, the very word made me mad. I had nothing to apologize _for_, in my opinion, other than being optimistic and hopeful.

And then the sarcasm that he had been trying to hold back registered, and my anger dissipated as quickly as it had appeared.

"Oh, I'm not going to apologize-"

"I figured-"

"Because I have nothing to apologize _for. _I just wish you wouldn't write me off so quickly." I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself. Neither of us were very good with words, especially when it came to explanations. "I have dealt with the people I'm closest to treating me like-like I'm fragile. Like I belong in an institution. You've never treated me like that, until the hallucinations started back up. And you-you condemned me so _quickly, _after that. And I wasn't sure how to deal with it, which is why I, uh."

Where had I been going with that, again?

Oh, right.

"Which is why I avoided you," I finished lamely.

"For an entire week. I kind of got the idea after a _night_, Kaori." I ducked my head and hid a smile. He had gotten the idea after one night? That was better than I could have hoped for. "And I really probably _shouldn't_ have insisted that you were, y'know, fuckin' batshit. Again. But I'm sorry for that. And. Uh. It won't happen again?"

I beamed at him, having not expected any sort of apology at all. "I'm not looking for an apology, Grimmjow."

"You're not?"

"No," I said, shaking my head slowly and drawing the word out. If the little inkling of an idea in the back of my head proved false, then I would have to accept that I was going to need to probably be checked into a mental facility. "I felt like it was time for me to come back home and for us to work this out."

"Oh, _good_, because I just pulled that apology out of my ass and it kind of physically hurt to say it." The smile that had found it's way onto my face turned into a frown in a heartbeat.

"Haha, very funny," I deadpanned. "I could always leave for another week, come home again, and then repeat this process."

"So what now?" he asked quickly, trying to change the subject as fast as he could.

I scooped one of the shinai up from where I had hidden them beneath the table before I had even left. I tossed it at him and he caught it with ease. He looked from the shinai and back to me, eyebrows raised.

"You're not going to beat me?" It was a statement, but the fact that he posed it as a question made me think he thought I was still mad at him.

And I was, a little. But I knew I was nowhere near close to being an 'okay' fighter, and I was going to do as terrible as I typically did. But it would be liberating to catch him by surprise at least once.

"I'm going to at least try."

There was a skeptical tone to his voice as he said, "Okay."

* * *

><p>Grimmjow was flat on his back on the floor blinking up at me, his shinai clear across the room and my own pointed at his throat. A massive grin had wormed it's way onto my face as I took in the sight, marveling at the fact that I had <em>done<em> it.

I mean, sure, it would probably be the only time I would ever manage to beat Grimmjow in a semi fair mock fight, but _I had done it._

"What the fuck." He sounded as though he couldn't process this new turn of events. "Where the fuck did you learn how to do _that_."

By 'that', he could have meant anything. From the way I had tripped him and then rammed my shoulder into his stomach and sent him into the ground the _first_ time, or how I had managed to recover when he had tried to toss me across the room when he had moved to get up.

"Training with Yuna," I replied cheekily, moving my shinai away from his neck and holding a hand out to him.

"Wait. You actually learned shit?" I hauled him up and he went a little farther than he should have, one of his arms winding it's way around my waist.

"Yeah. What did you think I spent my time doing with her?"

"I dunno. Talking about your feelings or some shit or whatever it is when there's more than one girl in a room with no guys in it. I didn't think you spent your time actually _learning how to fight." _ I threw my head back and laughed, pushing my face into his shoulder as the noise wracked through my body.

I had missed all of this over the past month, much more than I thought I had.

Grimmjow placed a hand on my head and laughed quietly at my reaction to his words. "You _do_ realize that's the only time you're going to ever beat me, right?"

"There's always a chance it'll happen again!"

"Yeah, if I knock myself out!" I pushed him away from me and set my hands on my hips, pushing my lower lip out in what was, in essence, a pout.

"There is always a chance!"

"Yeah, okay," he agreed sarcastically, moving across the living room and picking up his discarded shinai. He returned to his spot across from me, feet apart, weapon point in my direction.

I took a stance similar to his, though not as quickly as I normally did.

"What was it you wanted me to apologize for, anyway?" Grimmjow adjusted his grip on the shinai, something I only saw him do when I asked questions he wasn't quite prepared to give the answer to.

"The bed is _really_ cold when you're not in it."

And then he attacked.

* * *

><p>Grimmjow and I were standing a street corner, just under a street light. Ichigo was walking toward us, hands in his pockets and shoulder's hunched up. He had called me nearly a half hour beforehand, telling me to meet him on that specific street corner and to bring 'your asshole.' I had also brought my asauchi, just in case.<p>

"You're fuckin' late, Kurosaki," Grimmjow pointed out rather unhelpfully. And it was the truth, but only by about three minutes.

I elbowed Grimmjow in the ribcage and forced a smile, not liking Ichigo's body language. I also didn't like that he hadn't given me a reason for calling us out in the dead of night.

"Evening, Ichigo," I said brightly, bouncing on the balls of my feet.

All he did was bob his orange head at me, which was yet another indication that something wasn't quite right.

"Let's go for a walk," was all he said, plowing on straight past us and out of the street light.

I saw Grimmjow open his mouth to retort, more than likely to say no and proceed to curse him. Preemptively, I rammed my elbow into his rib cage again and plunged after Ichigo into the night.

Grimmjow snarled from behind me and then followed, briskly matching my pace as I raced on my short legs to reach Ichigo.

"Have you guys felt anything weird lately?" Ichigo asked when we had caught up with him almost a block later. Really, neither of the tall men I accompanied really took my stubby little legs into account.

They were either going to have to slow down, or I was going to have to invest in a pair of rollerblades and hold onto the back of someone's pants.

"Uh, no?" I offered up. I hadn't seen much of Ichigo since our impromptu breakfast as McDonald's weeks ago; he seemed tenser now, more strung out and hard.

"Urahara told me an hour ago that someone was attacked last night."

Good. He didn't seem to know that it was Karin who had been attacked. If he had, heads would roll. And he would probably come for me first, since I kind of was enabing her to keep going out at night to kick ass.

And I was going to keep it that way for as long as I could, hell or high water.

"Really?" I asked, trying my best to sound surprised. Everyone knew I wasn't the best liar, especially without Hideki in my head. "Wonder who it was."

Ichigo was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the way Grimmjow rolled his eyes at my words, or the weird tone in my voice.

"Urahara wouldn't tell me, but Hollows don't really attack anything that doesn't have any reiatsu. Which really limits who it could be, since most people I know about with reiatsu are either at teh Shoten, off at college, or are you two. So."

It was almost weird, how he didn't think it could be one of his kid sisters who had fallen victim. But the less he knew about what Karin did, the better.

"And we're following you because?" Grimmjow prompted impatienty. He had had something else in mind when it came down to what we were going to spend our night doing, and it hadn't involved me answering my phone and making him put some pants on so we could go meet Ichigo.

"Because you're the only two with spirutal pressure I could think of?" There was more, hanging in the cold air-we were the only ones who were of age to put ourselves in danger, the only ones who wouldn't purposely avoid the truth like Urahara.

We weren't his first pick of a posse, but we were his only choices. Even if I was a wimp and Grimmjow still wanted to kill him.

The three of us fell into silence as Grimmjow and I followed Ichigo doggedly through the streets. It was unclear where the Shinigami was going, or even what was directing him. For all we knew, he was just wandering aimlessly, hoping to run into the thing that had attacked an 'unknown victim.'

We were a half hour into our trek when I saw the same hallucination I had seen earlier that morning, standing in the middle of the street ahead of us. I gulped and grit my teeth; in the dark, it was still so easy to tell just how bottemless and empty it's eyes were.

The blood on it's lips and arms and body looked black and old.

"What the fuck is that," Grimmjow demanded.

"What's what?" I asked, completely ignoring the hallucination as Grimmjow and Ichigo stopped in their tracks and stared.

"That _thing_," Ichigo said, just as Grimmjow pointed ahead of us.

And right at the hallucination.

I felt my jaw drop just a little. "You can _see_ that?" I squeaked out, waving a hand at the ghoulish looking creature. "That-that white thing, right? With the long arms and all doubled over like it is."

"What the fuck else would we be staring at, Kaori?" Grimmjow demanded.

I blinked at them, then blinked again. "You can really see it?" I asked, just to be sure.

"WHY WOULD WE BE TALKING ABOUT IT IF WE COULDN'T SEE IT."

I opened my mouth to reply when Grimmjow grabbed me by my upper arm, yanking me pretty much off of my feet and into his chest as a loud screeching noise rented the air. I felt him stumble back a couple of steps, my feet dragging on the ground after us.

I looked over my shoulder to see a giant, smoldering hole where I had stood before.

Huh, it hadn't done that before.

And then the implications of what was really going on hit me. Combined with Karin's story about what had attacked her and the verbal confirmation that I had just received from both Ichigo and Grimmjow, I could only come to one conclusion.

"I FUCKING TOLD YOU I WASN'T HALLUCINATING! YOU CAN ALL SUCK MY DICK," I screamed, yanking my arm out of Grimmjow's grip and jumping up and down in excitement.

"KAORI, NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO GLOAT."

"FUCKING _FIGHT ME, BRO."_

I was too ecstatic to be proven right; there was no way either of them were going to pee on my parade. I let out a loud whoop, the victory lap to my already shouted joy.

I wasn't going crazy again. I hadn't been hallucinating at all. Hideki hadn't left me with a permanent scar (at least, not yet).

"Grimmjow, take her and get out of here!"

Grimmjow, to his credit, didn't have to be told twice. He grabbed my hand, holding it so tightly I could feel my bones grinding together, and yanked on my arm. I tripped over my feet the first couple of steps, stupid smile still on my face as I nearly dropped my asauchi, before I finally found my footing and started to run with him.

And then my mind really caught up with what was happening. The things I had been seeing were real; I hadn't been hallucinating.

_I hadn't been hallucinating._

I pumped the fist that held my asauchi a couple of times in the air, letting out another loud sound of excitement as we raced through the streets, back toward our apartment.

We tumbled through the door together, a mess of jelly knees and shaky limbs. My breath was coming in quick, rapid gasps and my lungs were burning, but the smile was still on my face.

The second Grimmjow turned around from unlocking the door, hair more mussed than usual, I grabbed him by the front of his coat, yanking him down to my height and kissing him fiercely. He made a muffled noise in surprise against my mouth before he cut himself off, arms wrapping around my body and squishing me up and into his.

We broke apart, breathing hard, staring at each other in the dark.

Grimmjow found words first.

"That thing was terrifying."

"Yeah!" I agreed excitedly, kissing him again. I was still jumping up and down when I pulled back, the grin on my face almost too big for my mouth.

"And you've been seeing those _everywhere_?"

"Yeah!" It seemed like it was the only word that could come out of my mouth. But I was in such a good mood, I was sure that nothing could possibly kill it.

"They've never tried to hurt you before?"

"No!" I paused then, but only for a moment. "Yeah! Never mind! I think that might have."

"What." But I was already nodding, because a couple more things already made sense.

"Last night, when I was on my way over here. It was standing on the sidewalk, and I didn't really want to cross the street to avoid it since, you know, I was also pretty sure they were hallucinations-but they were going to go away eventually. So I charged at it, and skirted it at the last possible second as it reached out for me. But I guess I was so focused on getting over here that I didn't realize that it had actually touched me?

"And, I mean, it's arms look like they're flimsy and noodly, but as we saw tonight they've got more than a little bit of muscle on them. And they're capable of. Well. Whatever that was."

"What do you mean, 'as we saw tonight'?"

I frowned at him, and then remembered that I hadn't actually told him about what had attacked Karin.

"That thing. Whatever it was, it was what did all of _that _to Karin. She described it down a T, this morning just a bit after she woke up."

"And you didn't think to tell anyone?"

"Well, _no_. I mean, the last time I tried to tell people about what I had been seeing, you all called me crazy. Again." It was only then that I noticed a look on Grimmjow's face, one that I had seen before but couldn't place. It was familiar to me, but I couldn't remember _why_.

"What are you thinking?" I asked cautiously, taking a step back. My grip on his jacket relaxed.

". . . I really want to fuckin' fight one."

* * *

><p><em>an: i know i said this would be up yesterday, but i took a really hard fall about five minutes after i updated last and, basically, it's a miracle i didn't break anything. between that and a family emergency and getting ready for christmas, this is a little late. SORRY!SORRY!_

_but next, the intermission! very excited for that!_

_as always, thank you all so much for your reviews and your alerts and your favorites! they mean so much to me! keep it up, maybe?_


	10. intermission: in screaming color

**intermission one. in screaming color**

Coming home to find Kaori in the kitchen on her days off was normal; she was enrolled in college, she had coursework to do, papers to write, things to read.

Coming home to find Kaori in the kitchen on her days off with Ichigo Kurosaki was a little less normal and way more annoying than it was maddening. But it wasn't completely unexpected, as they were friends and Kurosaki possessed a protective streak a mile wide.

Grimmjow only had himself to blame on that point, he knew; he had dedicated his being to killing Kurosaki Ichigo where he stood, and he could see how that could come off as the entirety of his personality. It probably didn't help that he had tried to kill Kuchiki Rukia, either.

But whatever. What happened happened, and he would probably do it all the same way _again_ if he was, somehow, given the chance to do so.

He would also _know _better when it came to fighting the fucking Quincy that had, for all intents and purposes, sealed up his reiatsu nice and tight and made him human. Like, okay, being human was alright-no hollow hole in his stomach, no mask remnant on his face, constant access to Kaori without any Shinigami watching his every step like blood hungry hounds.

He would have preferred to be an arrancar, however, Shinigami watching his every movement like dogs or not. Then he wouldn't suffer from annoying paper cuts, could feel power thrumming through his veins like a gentle reminder that he wasn't tethered down to the human world, not really, wouldn't have to worry about if Kaori ran into a hollow she couldn't outrun.

At least if he were an arrancar, he would be able to kill something _without_ getting in trouble.

He had, however, been told a number of times that he had 'adjusted' obscenely well to having little to no reiatsu at all to work with. That it was almost hard to tell that he had even been an arrancar in the first place. Kaori hadn't been the one to say any of those things, though-she just beamed at him and told him that he was 'so much better at this adult stuff' than she was on a weekly basis.

_Mainly_ when she completely forgot about the groceries, or dinner, or putting on pants. Or even her coursework, though that seemed to be shunted to the side most days in favor of complaining about said coursework.

But Kaori did much, much better than she gave herself credit for. She had been ostracized and marginalized since childhood, and was trying to learn how to cope _without_ suddenly being on the outside, like she had been her whole life.

Really, they were both trying to adjust to living like normal people with the occasional paranormal encounter.

But did she _really_ have to invite Kurosaki to stay for dinner?

* * *

><p>He walked back into the kitchen to find Kaori on the phone with her mother yet, pained and panicked look on her face as she probably tried to talk her way out of something. He had a pretty good idea of what it was-Kaori had, after all, been successfully talking her way out of the same situation for six months at least.<p>

That occurrence just so happened to be dinner with her mother, which was normal enough. He knew what it was the older Kozume wanted, though, and that was for him to be present. Kaori, for whatever reason, was vehemently against the very idea of it happening.

Except for the fact that he had _already_ met her mother, almost three months ago.

Kaori didn't know; she would probably murder him in his sleep if she knew. And it hadn't even been his idea, really-he had been at work, teaching a class of snot nosed brats, and one of his co-workers (he wasn't the best with names; he hadn't really bothered to recall everyone's, after all) had told him someone had asked for him specifically.

He hadn't been expecting a tiny force of maternity in a nurse's uniform with a bob the same color as Kaori's hair.

"You must be Grimmjow, yes?" The woman didn't look Japanese in the slightest, green eyes a shade startling similar to Kaori's.

"Yeah?" He was confused. What the _fuck_ would anyone want with him? His history was entirely fabricated, thanks to Urahara and whatever the fuck he had managed to pull together. There would be no real reason for anyone to seek him out-he wasn't aware of any enemies he had made in Karakura town, other than with Kurosaki.

"Great! Kaori's told me a bit about you."

Wait.

What.

"Kozume Moira," she had said in explanation, catching the obvious confusion on his face. "Kaori always seems to neglect to mention I'm American."

"She neglects to mention a lot of things." The statement was truer than he cared to admit, though he knew that he was more aware of what Kaori had been through than her mother was.

But what the fuck. What _the fuck._

The sharp smile that flashed across her face was identical to Kaori's in a way that made him feel like he was looking at an imperfect clone.

"I'm here because I wanted to see what kind of man my daughter was living with," she said, straight to the heart of the matter and in a no-nonsense way that Kaori lacked. He blinked, startled.

"Uh." _What the fuck is one supposed to say to _that_. _"Oh . . . kay?" That explained basically nothing-neither for an answer to her statement, or even what her statement was supposed to mean.

That had been the start of what seemed to be a weekly standing appointment for coffee.

And now he was standing on her doorstep, his hand in Kaori's, and his girlfriend was in the middle of what could have easily been a full blown panic attack. He knew she had probably been in one since she had fled the apartment that morning, lacking both her coat and her watch, though she showed no real outward signs of it.

He had gotten good at noticing them, after a time.

She was _just_ about to knock when who he knew to be Mizuri flung the door open, wild smile on her face at the mere sight of Kaori.

Or, more accurately, at the fact that she was _eye level _with Kaori. Which he knew immediately pissed Kaori off, because she was more than a little sensitive about her lack of height.

Other than her height, Mizuri looked next to nothing like either Moira or Kaori. Her hair was long and dark, dark black and her eyes were a bright, bitter blue.

But when she opened her mouth, it was easy to tell that despite her looks, she had more in common with the other two women than he realized. It was easy to hear, the second she started speaking, that she was just as diabolical as either of the two older women in her family, if not _more_.

_Fuck_, it was cold, and she was making them stand outside as her skinny frame blocked the doorway. If he hadn't been hanging onto Kaori's hand, he was pretty sure his girlfriend would have pushed her way through, little sister blocking the way or not.

Then Kaori's mother's voice drifted from the kitchen and to them outside, telling Mizuri to get out of the way and let them in. Mizuri, to her credit, moved as quickly as she possibly could to comply; Grimmjow was kind of surprised when she didn't bow with a flourish as they moved past her.

Kaori would have; he figured theatrics might have been one of the bigger differences between the siblings.

After his 'introduction' to Moira, the rest of the night went by easily enough. Kaori seemed to be on edge, freezing when her mother inquired as to how they had met. Moira, of course, already _knew_ parts of how they had met. But Kaori hadn't moved fast enough, hadn't opened her mouth, and Grimmjow realized that she didn't have some kind of fake cover story at the ready like she normally would have.

But no matter what he pulled out of his ass at that moment, it wouldn't matter, because Moira had just wanted to see how Kaori would cover up for herself.

But after that, his girlfriend seemed to relax just a little more.

* * *

><p>The very idea that Kaori <em>might<em> have seen a hollow was more than enough to warrant him walking her home the next day, just in case. She had been completely frazzled the night before, but it was Karakura Town. The chances that it was just a cat that she had managed to catch a glimpse of before he could focus his attention on it were pretty big.

He wasn't so great at sensing hollows anymore, but having Kaori jump the gun and point them out so he could actively attempt to see them was a little demeaning. His ego deflated just a little more each time she did it, but he wasn't about to let her know _that_.

Which was why, just in case, he insisted on walking her home from work the next day and wouldn't take no for an answer. And, oh, had she tried to tell him no.

Repeatedly.

"What are you, my _mother?_" she grumbled, one hand in the pocket of her much too large hoodie and the other on his arm. "I am fine, Grimmjow. Really. This is completely unnecessary."

He just shook his head and fought back a smile. "I can't just walk you home?"

"If you were doing it just to be _nice_, then yeah. It would be sweet, actually, then. But you have ulterior motives this time. I can _see them_." She raised her eyebrows and narrowed her eyes at him, almost like that was going to drive her words home.

He just rolled his eyes and glanced over his shoulder. "What fuckin' ulterior motives?" He knew how to play this game, now; knew that if he could play dumb for as long as possible, she would give up eventually.

Kaori's elbow drove lightly into his ribs, and he really started to think about making her get elbow pads sewn into her coat because _fuck_ that was painful. He tried to jump away, half startled and on instinct, but her grip on his arm was iron tight.

It was a common dance they went through often, familiar and repeated time and time again. There was no ill will behind their movements, but he really should have seen it coming at that point.

All he could do was laugh though, and ask his question again.

Kaori screwed up her face, like she hadn't really thought through what his motives could be and simply expected him to come clean immediately. But as she did so, she tripped over her foot and they both almost wound up face first on the sidewalk.

"The one where you're thinking I might be in danger or something. Y'know, all of that knight in shining armor stuff. Because I _am_ a big girl, Grimmjow. I can take care of myself."

"Knight in shining armor bullshit? Where the fuck did that come from?"

"The Netflix history. I _know_ I didn't watch all of those chick flicks."

Well shit. Foiled again.

* * *

><p>They had come to a compromise of sorts, after that. While he wouldn't walk her <em>home<em>, she would stay on the phone with him. Just in case.

And it worked out pretty well, all in all. Kaori made it home safely every night, smug look on her face every time she pranced through the door. "See? I made it home _fine_. We can stop doing this."

They kept doing it anyway-Kaori partly to appease what she mistook as his nerves, Grimmjow to see how far he could push it before she was pissed off and just didn't call him or pick up her phone. He knew there was always a chance of that backfiring on him in a deadly way, but he didn't think about that part.

But then she had texted him _I have an escort_ and then didn't show up for hours.

The first hour was okay. He had read the text, set the phone down, and returned to what it was he was doing (which was _not_ watching chick flicks). He wondered who it could be that was 'escorting' her.

At the end of the hour, he called her.

When she didn't pick up, he assumed that he _had_ pushed a little too far with his insistence that he be on the phone with her as she walked home. So he decided to give her another hour-she could have been with Kurosaki for all he knew, and he was fully aware that, combined, the two of them had the attention span of a goldfish sometimes.

At the end of the second hour, he had a decision to make.

Should he call her? Make sure she was _alive_? Make sure she hadn't jumped into traffic yet again and no one had been there to save her? But she had an escort. Had the escort _pushed_ her into traffic?

He was already hitting the call button on his phone before his mind had fully processed what he was doing. And every time she didn't answer, he would hit the redial button.

Try number five, and he heard a click.

"Are you _dead_?" he heard himself ask. All of the tension seemed to flow out of him the second Kaori answered with a slightly confused tone to her voice.

While it might not have been the best thing to say, it was the only thing he could manage to get out of his mouth. He was weirdly relieved that she had answered, despite having started to call her only as a joke.

By the time he had managed to open the door, Kaori had already hung up her phone. It wasn't until he caught sight of her that he noticed the other woman towering next to her, smile on her face. A shiver ran up Grimmjow's spine at the sight of her-he knew her as a Shinigami immediately.

Old biases die hard.

* * *

><p>Kaori was hallucinating again.<p>

Which was, well, _not good_.

It had always been a possibility, he had known. They had _both_ known for a long time. And when she had first admitted that she was hallucinating again, it had been with hesitation. Like she was going to be afraid of his reaction.

Except, he had _met_ Kaori when she had been hallucinating. Although, 'met' was a term he used lightly, seeing as 'abducted on Aizen's behalf' was a lot more creepy and way less eloquent. He had fallen for her while she had been hallucinating, which in retrospect was a little weird, but she also technically _wasn't_ hallucinating.

They didn't really _talk_ about Hueco Mundo. It was there, it was looming in the backs of their minds, but none of the words ever made it past their lips. For whatever reason, neither of them really brought it up, let alone discussed what had happened in the two years they had been apart.

What they had was a fragile thing, and Kaori knew that. He figured it was part of the reason she had been treading so lightly since admitting to the hallucinations.

He had talked to Moira about them, of course, with the full knowledge that Kaori would murder him in his sleep if she ever found out. But it was the only thing he could think of, because he _wanted_ to help her, even if she figured they were temporary. Moira had raised Kaori, had stood by her through thick and thin and every hallucination large and small. She knew what to _do_ and how to address it.

So he took her advice and tried to talk to Kaori about accepting that the hallucinations she was suffering from might not be temporary at all.

And, well.

She got _pissed_.

Left.

* * *

><p>Moira was waiting for him at the cafe, like she was every week since they had initially met, coffee's already ordered and waiting. He was pretty sure Kaori would flip if she knew that her mother and himself were meeting weekly, especially since they had been doing so since <em>before<em> the family dinner where they totally pretended they had never met before.

As far as he knew, Kaori hadn't picked up on any of _that_ yet.

He folded himself into the chair across from Moira, thanked her for his coffee and took a sip.

"So, Kaori showed up at my door last night."

"Uh, yeah," he said. "What did she-what did she say?" He had never _seen_ Kaori that mad before. He hadn't thought she was actually capable of getting so angry, of storming out of a room with her presence still lingering, a fiery crackle and nerves on edge.

"That you argued about bonsai care. Which I know that neither of you would ever have a bonsai because it sounds like you both have a hard enough time remembering to feed yourselves." He shouldn't have been surprised-Kaori didn't want to tell Moira about the resurgence of hallucinations, wouldn't want to explain it in the rage she had been in when she had left the apartment.

But _he_ had told Moira, carefully and cautiously and armed with the full knowledge that Kaori would be forever furious at him if she found out. To her credit, Kaori's mother had not panicked; she had just sighed and shook her head, told him to give her some space and time.

Two weeks later, when the hallucinations still hadn't stopped and Kaori still hadn't told her mother, Moira had suggested that he breach the subject of the hallucinations not going away _gently_.

And, well, gentle wasn't exactly in his vocabulary.

"I _tried_ to take your advice and talk about the hallucinations and the possibility that they weren't going to go away, but she. Uh. Didn't want to think about that and got _really_ pissed when I suggested it. Which was when she left." Moira didn't know anything about reiatsu or Hollows or how he and Kaori had _actually_ met, and he wanted to keep it that way.

But she nodded knowingly. "She _is_ stubborn," she reminded him gently. "But she'll come around."

* * *

><p>He opened the door, half hoping to see Kaori, a part of him knowing that the chances of that happening were more than just a little slim.<p>

Instead, the rather tall Shinigami that had walked Kaori home a number of weeks ago stood there, hands shoved into the pockets of her short jacket. He still wasn't sure what, exactly, it was about her that put him so on edge-her status as a Shinigami might have been part of it, but her willingness to help Kaori so _quickly_ outweighed that much of it.

The expression on her face was neutral, and Grimmjow didn't know her well enough to know if that was a good or bad thing. He had only met her _once_, after all.

"Are you just going to stand there frowning at me or are you going to say something?" she asked. He couldn't remember her name.

So he said the only thing that could come to mind.

"Kaori's not here."

"I know."

Uh. Oh?

"If you know that, then why are you here?"

"Because I need to speak with you."

_Yuna_. Right. Her name was Yuna.

"Uh. Come in?"

Her footsteps made no sound as she padded into the apartment past him, hands still in her jacket. He frowned at her back, but shut the door.

He turned to find her standing awkwardly next to the wall, shoulders tense and the neutral look firmly on her face. In the light of the hall, he noted that there were at least five piercings in each of her ears, something he hadn't been able to see in the poor light of their first encounter.

"So," she started easily, voice contradicting her body language. "I know you don't like me very much, probably because I'm a Shinigami, you're a former arrancar, I'm rolling around on the floor with your girlfriend for hours a day, you are not. Like I understand that those can be some pretty big things to get over or come to terms with, but really there is no need for hostility at this time."

_At this time._ Which meant that there would be _plenty_ of time for hostility later.

"And I totally get that my sudden appearance and interest in Kaori is more than a little suspicious, but I honestly don't mean her nor you any harm. I don't mean anyone harm. Not today, at least. I mean, I do mean some people harm on certain days and-oh, shit. There I go incriminating myself again." She pulled a hand out of her pocket just to smack herself on the forehead, leaving a bright red angry spot. "Anyway, I just wanted to get all of that out there. And I understand that I am rambling and I know I am so totally overusing conjunctions but I don't recall where it was I going with any of this."

That was probably more words of nonsense strung together than even Kaori could manage, and he almost had to give Yuna kudos for that much.

"Uh." He hadn't been able to follow her, really. "Okay?"

"I _am_ leaving soon, though. So you can go back to rolling around with your girlfriend when she decides to come back. But I should probably warn you, she _has_ improved. I wouldn't take her lightly anymore."

And that was the heart of the entire situation, wasn't it? Yuna had been teaching Kaori to fight, and-as she had admitted herself-it had been sudden. All of a sudden, she had shown up, learned about Kaori and her hallucinations. _Insisted_ on teaching her how to fight, and Kaori had jumped on that chance.

Grimmjow just didn't understand _why_.

There was something the Shinigami was hiding, and she wasn't going to give it up.

* * *

><p>The bed was really cold without Kaori in it. He learned that on the first night, and was constantly reminded by that fact every time he woke up. Eventually, every spare blanket in the apartment was piled onto the bed.<p>

And Kaori still wasn't back.

But he did what he could in her absence, going grocery shopping and keeping the apartment mostly clean-he got rid of the unimaginable amounts of pizza boxes!

And then, of course, Karin came.

It had been the middle of the night, and she had pounded on the door weakly. It had been a miracle he had even heard her; he wouldn't have, had he been sleeping like he should have. He had gotten up to pee; it was weird to think, later, that if he hadn't, he would have opened his door to a dead girl in the morning.

As it was, he was half asleep and confused as to _why_ anyone would be knocking on the door at whatever the fuck time it was.

He wasn't quite as asleep when he opened the door and just barely managed to catch a bleeding, mauled Karin before she hit the floor.

"Uh," he stated, mind drawing a blank. The cold air was gusting in from outside; the girl in his arms was _freezing_ and slick with blood and, most important, still bleeding. Ichigo and Kaori would _kill_ him if Karin died on his watch.

Only, he wasn't sure what exactly it was that he was supposed to do with the bleeding human in his arms. It had been years since he had had to do any sort of first aide, especially on someone other than Kaori, and he was drawing a blank on what it was that he was supposed to do. And, sure, he had seen Kaori at work on Karin a handful of times before, but it was never anything as bad as _this_.

Bleeding. Injured. Cold. Bleeding.

Oh, right.

He moved Karin into the bedroom, knowing time was of the essence and that Kaori kept one of her many first aide kits stashed in there. His phone was also in there, which was a plus, because he _needed_ to call Kaori and keep calling her it she didn't answer.

But she _did_ answer, which was the important thing.

More than that, she stayed on the phone with him the entire time he tried to staunch Karin's bleeding and keep the teenage girl alive for as long as he could.

It still felt like eons, waiting for Kaori.

Kaori came sliding into the room, her hair a rats nest from sleep and the rain, legs bare and mud specked as she dropped to the ground across from him, eyes on Karin. There was blood smeared on her face, and she hadn't bothered to change out of her pajamas before making a mad dash to the apartment, the shorts with the bunnies on them damp.

She took over immediately, telling him to call Tessai as she threw her phone at him.

He caught it, miraculously, and did exactly as he was told.

And when Tessai had arrived, finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Kaori moved herself into a corner. The blood on her face had dried, and Grimmjow could almost make out what looked like long, deep scratches on her cheek. He sunk down to his ass beside her to watch, realizing that he was covered in blood as well.

But unlike Kaori, the blood wasn't _his_. And he didn't know what could have caused the cuts on her face, why she wasn't saying anything about them, why they didn't seem to be bothering her.

And when they had been brought up, she honestly didn't _know_ about them, not until he had handed her her phone and she had _looked_. Seen the cuts and the almost hand print for herself. She looked nauseous then, like she was going to lose whatever it was that she had in her stomach.

He could only assume that since she didn't know they were there, since she didn't remember getting them, that she had blacked out for the first time in a long time.

And if that was the case, then her hallucinations were far worse than he had originally thought.

* * *

><p>He shuffled into the apartment like the walking dead, stripping of his hoodie and his shoes. The apartment was completely quiet, which meant that both Karin and Kaori were likely gone. And it wasn't like he was holding out any sort of hope for Kaori to still be there, not after the week they had had, despite their truce in the early hours of the morning.<p>

So he locked the door and moved into the kitchen, throwing his keys onto the table as he moved toward the fridge because _fuck_ he was thirsty.

He turned around, and saw Kaori sitting at the kitchen table, tiny hands folded on the surface before her and a smirk on her face. There were dark patches under her eyes, announcing just how little sleep she had really gotten the night before, and all of her hair was piled at the top of her head.

And then she laughed, throwing her head back and covering her mouth with her hands at his reaction. Except now the counter was digging into his back and there was water all down the front of his shirt, and his heart had upticked the second he had caught sight of Kaori, mostly because she startled him.

* * *

><p>Kaori wanted to fight him. And in a semi-serious manner, if the determined look on her face and the steady rise and fall of her chest was anything to go by.<p>

She moved first, taking him completely off guard; she _never_ moved first unless it was to get food. When they were fighting, she was always hesitant, waiting for him to attack first so she could respond in turn hesitantly.

There was nothing hesitant about how she moved, not now.

She swung her shinai at his head, and he reacted in a heartbeat, completely on instinct but a little off balance. He brought the weapon up to guard, leaning back-

But her shinai never hit his own.

He felt all of the air forced out of his lungs as her shoulder slammed into his stomach, one of her feet hooked behind his ankle. Already off balance, the shinai flew out of his hand as he crumbled to the floor, breathless and in more physical pain than he thought Kaori could ever put him in.

"Shit," he heard Kaori mutter vaguely. "Did I kill you?" Her face was suddenly over his own, her shinai still in her had. His vision was blurry, mind a little fuzzy as he tried to process the idea that Kaori-below-average size Kaori who he was sure could never hurt anything in her _life_ (himself excluded from that list for a number of reasons)-had actually managed to knock him flat on his back for something other than a bedroom activity.

Instead of answering her verbally, he shook his head and started sitting up, mind already working on how he was going to manage to get her back. He knew it wasn't a real fight; knew he could never really fight Kaori, knew that the notion of fighting her was no where near as appealing as fighting Ulquiorra or Ichigo.

But he had to fight back _somehow_.

Which was why, as she scuttled backwards while trying to help him stand, he made a quick decision.

And grabbed her.

And tossed her with enough force to send her to the couch, where she would land safely. Because it wasn't like he was going to try and hurt her on _purpose_-she had, after all, used her momentum and size along with his own momentum and habits to take him down.

Yuna had said she was doing 'alright'-not that she had advanced so quickly that he almost didn't recognize the way his own girlfriend fought.

Except, Kaori didn't land on the couch. She twisted her body in the air, landing on her feet about a foot from the couch. Her shinai was held tight in her hand, pointed directly at him, a somewhat startled expression on her face. Part like she hadn't expected him to throw her, part like she hadn't actually expected to be able to regain her footing and _land_ before she was at a disadvantage.

She charged at him again before he had a chance to grab his shinai, wherever it had landed.

He was too startled, by her sudden recovery or her sudden ferocity or her sudden increase in skill.

And by the time he realized that he would be _dead_ if it wasn't Kaori, that he should probably find his shinai and defend himself and fight _back_, it was too late. The ceiling was _above_ him, same with Kaori's flushed, grinning face, framed by chunks of her chestnut hair that had fallen out of the bun at the back of her head. Her shinai was pushed up gently against his neck.

Despite his short talk with Yuna, he hadn't actually thought that Kaori had been _learning_ anything. She had been working much longer with him, and with very few results. To see how much she had improved in such a short time stung, just a little, because it hadn't been _him_ who had shown her how to do things.

But however it was that Yuna had decided to teach her, it had worked.

But he wanted to see the extent of her ability, so once he was done cuddling her for a short moment, he moved to find his shinai and engage with her again.

* * *

><p>After that, things went downhill, but in a good way.<p>

In the 'Kaori is underneath me shirtless and _fuck_ why is it so hard to grab someone's ass and undo their pants at the same time?' kind of way. Her hands are in his hair, and he's not entirely sure where his pants went, but _who the fuck needs pants_?

But then her phone rings, and he rips his mouth from where it was on her neck, startled and confused because _where is that sound coming from?_

Kaori, in his moment of confusion, managed to wiggle out from underneath him and dive off of the bed, snatching her phone from the nightstand while landing with a thud on the floor.

"Hello?" she yelped into the device as she stood, rubbing her ass where she had landed on it. Her pants had slipped down below her hips, and if he reached out and _tugged_, he could probably get her back into bed without her pants.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah." He didn't know who she was talking to, nor did he really care. But they had been in the middle of something, and if that 'something' didn't resume when she hung up, he wasn't sure _what_ he was going to do.

In an almost lazy moment, he reached out and tugged on the back of her pants, pulling her back down onto the bed.

She smacked his hand away immediately, but didn't move from the bed.

"Sure. Fifteen minutes? Yeah. Yeah, we'll be there."

Well _fuck_. There went that idea.

Kaori hung her phone up and stood, turning to face him with a wicked smile on her face. "Ichigo needs some help," she told him cheerfully, slipping her phone into the back pocket of her sagging pants.

"_And_?" He did not like where this was going. This _was not_ how this was supposed to be going.

Instead, Kaori's grin turned even more wicked as she scooped his pants off of the floor.

"Get your pants back on," she said with a grin, throwing his jeans at his head. He caught them easily and frowned at her because, _no_, this was _not_ how they were supposed to be spending their night.

"Wh-"

"Where did you throw my shirt?" she continued, turning and scanning the room, talking over him completely.

That was when he knew two things.

One, their night was a lost cause.

Two, he was going to _kill_ Kurosaki Ichigo.

"I think the removal of your shirt was a group effort!" was his only answer. Kaori frowned at him from over her shoulder as she buttoned and zipped up her pants. "But I would look in the hallway," he amended quickly, hoping he could _somehow_ salvage what should have been happening.

It wasn't looking like their evening was going to salvageable at all. Not only had Kurosaki succeeded in cockblocking him, he was _late_.

And when he _did_ get there, all he wanted to do was walk around in a sour attitude and, well, it kind of matched Grimmjow's own. For different reasons, of course, but still.

So, in the end, he was forced to traipse around Karakura Town in the cold with his girlfriend and his mortal enemy for no apparent reason other than 'someone was attacked'. He had nearly opened his mouth then, told him it was Karin that had been mauled by some hollow, but then he remembered what his goal for the night was and how sharp Kaori's elbows were.

Both were pretty good deterrents.

But then he saw _the Thing _and stopped dead in his tracks at about the same time Ichigo saw the same and mimicked his movements.

Kaori, on the other hand, kept walking, asauchi in one hand and the other shoved into the pocket of the pants he had _almost_ gotten off of her.

She didn't stop until they pointed out the freaky looking creature, covered in blood and grinning at them.

That was about when things got weirder than they already were, because Kaori freaked out. Not about the creature specifically, or that she was so close to it, but about the fact that he and Ichigo could see it.

Over Kaori's shoulder, as she's busy yelling and asking questions with her back turned to the Thing, Grimmjow can clearly see the Thing. Can see how it's attention is focused on Kaori, how it's bloody mouth is opening slowly by surely in a move he half-remembers from what feels like a lifetime ago.

He's grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward him with more force than necessary just in the nick of time. Added with the force of the Cero that wasn't quite a Cero, they stumble back a couple of feet, a tangle of limbs and tension.

Kaori starts yelling _more_, things about dicks and fighting and hallucinations, none of which Grimmjow completely understands. He's not even listening to her, really, just staring past where she's jumping up and down in excitement to the hole in the ground the Thing that made it.

Whatever it was, it wasn't a hollow. He could tell that much; there was no way a Hollow that looked and acted almost like an Arrancar could be there, no way things in Hueco Mundo could evolve that quickly in the year he's been gone. Or that poorly, based on the way it's body curls and how tiny it's limbs are.

For a moment, he remembers the Quincies that had come, the way that had captured Harribel and tied her up and _did_ things to her.

But then Ichigo's giving him an order and his thoughts are focused again on the present.

And it's not like he would have actually _run_ on Kurosaki's orders, not if Kaori hadn't been there. But Kaori _was_ there, and she was.

Well, she was _Kaori_.

She was excited, she was unpredictable, she was trembling, she was armed, she was untrained, she was in danger.

His grip on her hand tightened, and he yanked her after him, running. He could have picked her up, could have carried her all the way back to their apartment if she resisted. But she found her footing, let out a whoop, pumped her fist in the air.

Even in the dark, she looked more alive and happy than she had in a long time, wide smile stretched out across her face, sharp eye teeth catching the poor light put off by the street lamps, brown hair bouncing around her shoulders as she moved.

And she was _laughing_. There was some kind of murder-beast stalking the streets of Karakura, and she was laughing, breathless, running through the streets with her frozen hand in his and her footing surer than he had seen it since she had first run from him and straight into the path of a car.

This was Kaori as she should have been; Kaori without years of mental strain, without her PTSD, without the weight of the things she had been through pushing on her shoulders and tearing at the back of her mind.

Kaori, had she never been in Hueco Mundo.

* * *

><p><em>an: so sorry this took so long! the words were there, they just didn't want to come out. thank you so much for sticking with me this far, and things should start picking up in the next chapter or so. but i am coming down with a nasty cold (again) so it might take a while?_

_in the meantime, follow me on my tumblr (link on my profile under 'tumblah' (or just go for jaegerjagues)) to tell me to get my butt in gear, or drop a review?_


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